Overview

This post is up later than planned, but it took me longer than I intended to try most of the products in this box.

In the April box, I received the following items:

Soul Kitchen Curried Sweet Potato & Pumpkin Soup  

Up until trying this variety of instant soup, the only one I had tried that had no gluten-containing ingredients was the Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself Tomato and Basil Cup Soup. 

The Soul Kitchen Curried Sweet Potato & Pumpkin Soup counts as one of my five daily servings of fruit and vegetables. I prepared mine on my lunch break during a hybrid meeting with the neurodivergent recruitment agency I work for. I feel that I could have stirred it as I added boiling water because there were a few lumps. Although the soup wasn’t overly spicy, the spices overpowered the flavours of the sweet potato and the pumpkin. 

I ate the soup with a toasted cheese sandwich consisting of gluten-free bread, dairy-free sunflower spread and lactose-free cheddar cheese.

I also received a flyer to get 20% off on the Soul Kitchen website. 

Rating: 7/10

Rheal Energy Superfood Oat Bar Hazelnut Cacao

Hazelnut and chocolate, cacao or cocoa are some of my favourite flavours in sweet foods. Upon trying this bar, I could taste the hazelnut more than I could taste the cacao. I was also expecting the bar to have a hint of coffee due to it containing guarana, a natural caffeine source, but I didn’t detect any coffee at all. Despite this, I still liked the nibbly texture of the chopped hazelnuts.

Rating: 7/10

Remedy Energy Drinks Tropical Twist 

I don’t usually drink energy drinks, but this sounded interesting when I found it in my box. Upon opening the can, I was met with the tropical fruit aroma but when I tasted it, it had more like an alcoholic taste. I found this unusual because I don’t drink alcohol. When I finished drinking it, I got a tropical fruit aftertaste.

Rating: 7/10

Saved Lentil Puffs Smoked Paprika

I like paprika flavoured snacks, so I was initially excited to receive these in my box. The idea of this product being fortified with crickets seemed off-putting at first because it sounded like something from I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! When I tried the puffs however, I couldn’t taste any crickets whatsoever. The puffs have an intense smoked paprika flavour with a slightly hotter aftertaste. The puffs are also thinner than how they are shown on the packet, which meant there were more of them than I imagined. One downside is that the puffs irritated the skin on my hands. I don’t know if it was due to the paprika or the crickets.

Rating: 8.5/10

Keto Baker London Mixed Seeds Bread Mix

Receiving this in my box was very intriguing because I don’t think I had tried a bread-making kit before. All I needed to add to this was 300ml sparkling water, mix it, leave it to stand for 15 minutes, shape it into rolls and bake the rolls for 30 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius. I added some gluten-free flour to aid the process of shaping the dough into rolls. I also sprinkled some sesame seeds on top. 

After having cut one roll in half, I noticed that the middle seemed undercooked, so I baked the rolls for a further 10 minutes. Upon trying one of the rolls, it had a wholesome seed taste, but it was also very salty. I ate this roll with a Strong Roots The Pumpkin & Spinach Burger, some Strong Roots Crispy Skinny Fries and some salad.

Rating: 6/10

Nature’s Path Organic Mesa Sunrise Cereal

I had already tried this cereal when my mother bought it while we were on holiday with my father last year and I quite liked it, so I was originally happy to find it in my box. When I tried a few flakes again, they were crispy with a mixture of a sweet and salty taste. For the purpose of this blog post, I ate this cereal with coconut milk, sliced pear, crunchy peanut butter and cinnamon. While the cereal was crispy to begin with, it quickly went soggy with the coconut milk.

The box came with a coupon to get £1.00 off a box of Nature’s Path Organic cereal in various supermarkets. 

Rating: 7/10 on its own, 8/10 with the accompaniments. 

Dr. Will’s All Natural Tomato Ketchup

I didn’t get to try the bottle I received in my box because the best before date was shorter than I expected, so I threw it away to be on the safe side and ordered another bottle from Ocado. The bottle I ordered from Ocado came in a squeezy plastic bottle as opposed to the glass bottle that came in my box. Unfortunately, I also ended up throwing my second bottle away after having turned off a switch that I forgot powered my fridge before I went away, but I’m glad I used it for the Sweet Potato Jackets with Ketchup Chilli recipe in this month’s leaflet. 

The ketchup itself had a fresh aroma and a rich taste.

Some adjustments I made to the Sweet Potato Jackets with Ketchup Chilli were using cannellini beans instead of kidney beans, chopped garlic in a jar instead of fresh garlic, mild chilli powder instead of fresh chillies, dried coriander leaf instead of fresh coriander, lemon instead of lime, and lactose-free soft cheese instead of sour cream. I also omitted the avocado and ate the dish with grated lactose-free Cheddar cheese.

Rating: 8/10

King Soba Organic Rice Paper Vietnamese Style Rice Wraps 

I already enjoy the King Soba Organic 100% Brown Rice Noodles, so I was also intrigued to receive these.

When I removed the wraps from the packaging, some of them broke. After soaking them, they were sticky but easy to wrap around the filling. After having fried the wraps, they had a crispy and chewy texture. They also had the usual brown rice taste. 

I took inspiration from the Vietnamese Spring Rolls recipe in this month’s leaflet and the Vegetable Spring Rolls from Becky Excell’s Quick + Easy Gluten Free cookbook to use the wraps. I made the filling from frozen stir-fry vegetables, red spring onion, rice noodles, Chinese five spice powder and dried coriander. Some adjustments I made to the peanut butter dipping sauce were using white wine vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar and mild chilli powder instead of chilli flakes. I fried the wraps. Although one of them appeared to split while I cooked it, I easily managed to seal it again. 

Rating: 8/10

Purely Plantain Chips Nice & Spicy, Lovegrass Ke’ti Snacks Teff Puffs Hot & Spicy, Proper Corn Sweet & Salty Popcorn and iLove Snacks Natural Italian Olives

I didn’t try these items because I didn’t know how spicy the plantain chips would be; I thought the teff puffs would be too spicy for me; I don’t like sweet and salty combinations; and I don’t like olives. I donated these items to a food donation point in a shop. 

Final Verdict

I was initially disappointed with the selection of products in this month’s box compared to the previous month’s box. This is because I received a few products that I thought would be too spicy for my tastes as well as those I didn’t think I would like, such as the sweet and salty popcorn and the olives. Most of the products I tried were above average. My favourite product was the Saved Lentil Puffs Smoked Paprika (despite them irritating my skin) and my least favourite was the Keto Baker London Mixed Seeds Bread Mix. I also enjoyed making two of the recipes in the leaflet. 

Overall rating: 66.5/120

You can watch the unboxing video here:

Disclaimers: This is not a sponsored blog post. All opinions expressed are my own.

All photography is my own. 

List of brands included in the April 2024 box 

Soul Kitchen

Rheal Superfoods

Remedy Drinks

Saved

Keto Baker London

Nature’s Path

Dr. Will’s

King Soba

Purely

Lovegrass

Proper Corn

iLove Snacks