One of the first things I had to address when I started thinking about reducing waste was my meal delivery box. I’ve learnt so much over the years getting a weekly delivery with great recipes and the ingredients all laid out for you - gained a lot of confidence and started to understand how to throw together a meal with the basics in your store cupboards. But I couldn’t ignore how much plastic and waste was coming into my house each week.

I could have, with the recipe collection I’ve now got, and a bit of imagination, gone without a recipe box at all but I quite like the structure of having some guidance, some inspiration, a suggestion of what to cook. And that’s where SimplyCook comes in. This great kit is simply three spice/sauce pots per meal, four meals in a kit, meaning it fits through your letterbox and can be delivered anywhere from weekly to monthly.

It’s not entirely waste-free, clearly, but everything that is delivered is recyclable and it’s a lot less packaging than before. What I love about it, though, is that the recipes come with many, many suggestions and ways to flex the meal for portions and swap in and out various ingredients depending on taste and availability. It means you can make it work for you rather than bending all the ingredients that have been sent to your will.

And the icing on the cake is that because they are just three pots of seasoning and garnishes, the best before dates on them are a lot longer, so if you’ve ordered something but suddenly don’t fancy it, it can wait! This flexibility from start to finish is a stroke of genius, particularly where I’ve switched to a local veg delivery box that means I can’t guarantee what’s going to be in my fridge at any one time.

I’ve had a few boxes by now and it’s all been tasty, with a couple of stand out classics and flavours I wouldn’t otherwise have tried. The only downside, as far as I can see, is I’m not sure how often new recipes are becoming available. I’ve got quite the back catalogue to get through, though, so being bored won’t be a problem for a long while yet!