Meal times can be pretty monotonous after a while. Day in and day out making the same old things. I do enjoy cooking, and do like to try new things, but some days I am short on time or just haven’t had chance to properly set a meal plan. So it might mean grabbing something quick from the shops or throwing together a pretty half-hearted meal with the contents of the fridge.

As much as I like to meal plan, it is nice to have some recipe inspiration given to me. It can save time and mean that we do try some new recipes at home. Which is why I have to tell you about the HelloFresh Flavour Generator. You have probably heard of the brand before, as they have meal sets that you can order and they contain every single things that you need for those meals, making cooking from scratch really easy. I have used them before and found them really handy. But HelloFresh have the new Flavour Generator on their website, to help you to mix up your mealtimes, without having to order anything.

All you do is put in a genre of food that you feel like eating (I heart Mexican food a lot), and then what style of food you should try (spicy, tangy, sweet etc). Then click and voila! You get a choice of recipes to choose from.  You can click through to see what they are, and it tells you all of the ingredients and how long it will take. I love how it tells you all of the nutritional information too. So you can really make an informed choice and see exactly what is going into the meal; perfect for families with allergies or specific dietary needs, or even if you’re just trying to eat foods under a certain calorie level.

So I put in all of my information and chose the Mexican Black Bean and Buckwheat Bake – we don’t  eat meat that often in our house and I always have buckwheat in, so it was the perfect combination! Here is the recipe if you want to try it out for yourself:

Mexican Black Bean and Buckwheat Bake with Crème Fraîche

Ingredients (to serve two):

• Healthy oils for frying (such as rapeseed, olive or avocado)
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/2 vegetable stock pot (like Knorr)
• 275ml water
• 1 cup buckwheat
• 1/2 a green chilli
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 400g tin black beans
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• small pot crème fraîche
• cheddar cheese (optional – we don’t eat cheese so I left that off)

The recipe from The Flavour Generator then gives you step-by-step instructions, including the pictures, to show you exactly what to do. You can even download a pdf version of it. So if you say you can’t cook, you’ve got no excuses for not eating well – we can all follow these instructions. I found the recipe simple to follow, quick and straightforward.

But it is all about the taste of it in the end isn’t it? Well, it gets a big thumbs up from us in that category too, it tasted really delicious! I will definitely make it again (would work well to make a big batch of it and then use as leftovers for lunches), as well as use The Flavour Generator again. Anything that tells me what to eat and the ingredients I need to buy is a winner with me!

Have you ever tried this before? Does it sound like something that you would use?