As a family, we eat together as much as possible. Pretty much every single evening meal is with my three boys. This is lovely, but also rather tedious for my tastebuds; my children (despite my best efforts) embrace all foods beige and shun most things which hint at flavour and freshness. So yes, I jumped at the opportunity to try the GRUBBY X LEON Meal Kit Collaboration.
I love LEON. In my opinion, they’re one of the leaders in ‘fast food’ for their vibrant flavours and healthy options. Their chicken curry and meatball boxes fuelled my first pregnancy.
Grubby provides plant-based recipe kits. Since having children, I’ve found more and more meat has snuck into our meals and I’ve been trying to veer back to more plants. However, I’ve not had the brain capacity to give much thought as to what veggie and plant-based meals I could make. So I was intrigued to see what meals we’d be making.
The recipes come in brown paper bags. They fit into our fridge easily and everything is well packaged and proportioned. The recipe cards are clear and super easy to follow along.
Here’s what we made:
LEON Chipotle Black Bean Burrito Bowl with Lime Mayo
I love black beans. I’m less of a fan of chipotle. But I was willing to give this a go. I followed the instructions diligently. While there wasn’t too much cooking, there was a lot of assembling different parts. Lime featured heavily and I wondered if it would be too much. But it wasn’t. I also wondered if it would be big enough for two hungry adults. It was – just.
I was really pleased with how this looked on the plate – but only did it look good, it tasted amazing. In fact, I think my children and other half got quite annoyed at how many times I exclaimed, ‘it’s really good, isn’t it?’ The flavours were rich but offset by the tomato, guacamole and lime. Hurrah for all that lime! And having the packet of LEON rice made all the difference – it was one less thing to have to cook.
It was so good, that I made the black beans part of it again myself later in the week. And it was tasty, but definitely needed all the other elements to make it really really tasty – which just goes to show that the recipe creators know exactly what they’re doing.
LEON Crispy Tofu Souvlaki Skewers with Mediterranean Rice
Tofu doesn’t excite my husband. I think because of how I’ve made it in the past – which is not very well. The photo of it on the recipe card looked delicious however so I had high hopes that this time, I’d make something edible. My boys loved the skewer sticks which came in the recipe bag so much (they used them as swords), that I had to hide them away. Again, this recipe was super easy to make. I was a bit dubious when the instructions told me to break them into cubes (did I trust myself to break them into proportionately-sized pieces?) but it was easy enough. I failed at cooking the tofu on the skewers however – my frying pan just wasn’t big enough – so the boys got their ‘swords’ back again… When assembled, the meal was fantastic. I felt like the shallot and tomato salad really balanced out the heavier flavours. I’d even go as far as to say this was my favourite.
I’ve never had tofu taste so good! And definitely not made by me!
Final thoughts
These meal kits sparked a new love for cooking which I had lost over the years since having children. I’d forgotten how tasty home cooked food can be. And plant-based food at that. Even though the ingredients were simple, and the instructions were simple, the flavours were fantastic and I was suddenly excited about dinners again. I have zero inspiration when it comes to cooking but these two meals have made me realise that life doesn’t have to be only about pasta and pesto. We’ve tried several meals kits in the past, but this has been the best.
More Information
The GRUBBY X LEON Meal Kit Collaboration only runs until 30th October so be quick! These come in two or four-person portions, and there’s two other recipe kits to choose from; Pesto Dressed Crispy Chickpea Rice Bowl and Korean Sticky Cauliflower. If you’re new to GRUBBY, you can 25% off your first two weeks, which means a family box for five will cost you as little as £4.05 per person. PLUS, if you try all four recipes, you’ll also be gifted with money-off in LEON restaurants.
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