Three Days of Kindness with Kindness & Co

It's cold. It's grey. It's wet. Ugh… January blues. It's easy to look past the rubbish weather as you near the end of the year; all the twinkly lights and dazzling decorations are a good distraction whilst you count down the days until there's "NO MORE WORK." Get your coat, you're on holiday.

Christmas is all fun and games - fine foods and festive drinkies galore - but you don't come out the other side unscathed. It's the extra glug of brandy and the extra pour of cream - 'cause Christmas - not to mention the mountain of chocolate that could be rationed for the entire year (definitely won't), the never-ending cheese board (not another cheese sauce?), and the open bottles of port and sherry that demand to be drunk before they go past their best (yes, that's a thing).

And so we find ourselves in The New Year Awakening. The merry mischief's over and you're noticing a few more of those unwanted lumps and bumps. "Curse you mince pies!" *shakes fist* Thankfully, Cheltenham's health food gurus Kindness & Co are here to prise you out of that post Christmas gluttony rut with their new food program.

Branded as Three Days of Kindness, the town centre café prepares you three days of nutritious breakfasts, lunches and dinners, with snacks to curb those hunger pangs. Everything is made fresh daily, boxed up in recyclable packaging, and you can either collect or have it delivered.

Health kicks are all the rage at this time of year, and as we see the back of dry January - phew - it's about now that people give in to their fad diets. Whilst you're encouraged to avoid caffeine and alcohol over the three days, Kindness & Co's package is more of a focus on wellbeing rather than restricting yourself. The time you'd normally spend planning, shopping and cooking meals is now free to concentrate on your own health, and taking the decision making out of eating means you're more likely to stick to the plan (the £105 price tag is a good incentive too).

They say that by eating three balanced meals a day - no coffee, sugary snacks or post-work glasses of wine - and drinking 1.5-2 litres of water a day should not only help you get a better nights sleep, but you should feel lighter, energised and more alert. So before Kindness & Co officially launched their plan, I got the chance to test it out to see if it was as good as it sounded.

I'm no stranger to these kinds of programs, I've done juice cleanses with Jay Halford at The Core before (who's coincidentally now working with Kindness & Co) and also with Applebar in the centre of town (which I'd highly recommend). I'm used to cutting out the crap when I need to, and in doing the 5:2 Diet, I can feel satisfied on not a huge amount of food. And that's the first thing I noticed; there was quite a lot of food! Here are my Three Days of Kindness menu boxes:

Breakfast: Muesli, yoghurt, fresh fruit
Lunch: Quinoa Tabbouleh with coriander, mint, tomato and red onion
Dinner: Veggie chilli served with roasted sweet potato

Breakfast: Raspberry smoothie bowl with nuts and banana
Lunch: Butter bean puree, tomato salsa, wilted kale and roasted courgette
Dinner: Sweet corn fritters with baby spinach and tomato salsa

Breakfast: Fresh berry overnight oats
Lunch: Baked cauliflower, chickpea, rocket and cranberry salad with tahini dressing and pistachio
Dinner: Garden pea and mint soup

Snacks each day: A piece of fruit, a pot of nuts and two Kindness Energy Balls... I'm a sucker for an energy ball.

I looked forward to picking up each day's food; there's something exciting about being cooked for (The Chap should take note). And not having to think about meals for a few days felt like I gained some freedom (because I basically think about food 24/7). What a luxury. 

None of the boxes contained those free-from substitutes or lengthily-named ingredients, they were all just packed with familiar, inherently healthy foods. The cauliflower, cranberry and tahini salad was a joy to eat - I'm going back to Kindness & Co to get my hands on some more - and there was no chance you'd miss meat in the spicy bean loaded chilli. 

I tend to eat a lot of these things at home anyway, so for me it's not something I'd splurge on, but for those that want to hit the ground running, it's a great way to get a head start. That said, I was inspired to make a big batch of overnight oats for the rest of the week's breakfasts, and tomato salsa has been creeping into our dinners much more than it did before.  

I personally didn't lose any weight, but Kindness & Co isn't really about that. I did, however, feel more in tune with myself and really enjoyed having some "time off". Healthier and happier; that's what it's all about, right?

If you're interested in the Three Days of Kindness program, then check out Kindness & Co's website or pop in to chat to them. It's £95 if you collect - they're pretty flexible - or £105 to be delivered within a certain radius of Cheltenham. Easy.

Future Foods: Wish Lists for 2018

"New Year, New Me?" Nah, not my thing either. But seeing as we're now a couple of weeks into 2018, it's time to establish those goals. 2017 was pretty spectacular - weddings, holidays, honeymoons - meaning this year has a lot to live up to. A LOT. So what is it that I want to do this year? Where do I want to go? Resolutions, wish lists, whatever you want to call them... Let's do this.

As I sit here typing this, stuck in bed feeling totally wiped out, health and wellness should be first on my agenda. It's all cleanses, diets and detoxes shoved in our faces as soon as we hit January 1st, and whilst I do really need to shift a few pounds (plus a few more), it's more about looking after myself than anything else. I always struggle talking about my IBD issues - bowel problems is pretty embarrassing after all - and although I'm lucky it's not so severe, I still get flare ups which bring with them a whole host of symptoms. I've learnt that sleeping it off helps, despite being plagued with guilt for missing work, but it's taking better care of myself that's the overall key. Fear not, I'm not going full on cabbage soup. It's all about balance, right? And there's plenty of fun to be had, so I'm determined not to miss out...

At the end of last year, Time Out published their list of the 100 Best Dishes in London, and with a pal we've decided to try and eat as many of them as possible. I've managed to tick a few off over the years already; BBQ-spiced crispy pigs' ears at Duck & Waffle, salt beef beigel at Brick Lane Beigel Bake, bacon naan roll at Dishoom, a custard doughnut at St John Maltby, pappardelle with beef shin ragù at Padella, confit pork bao at Bao and that EPIC Reuben sandwich at Monty’s Deli. I wonder how far we'll get.

The Chap and I have a few places in the pipeline already, starting with The Bell Inn Langford at the end of this month. After receiving such high praise from Giles Coren in The Times at the weekend, ‘On the final day of 2017, I had not just the best mouthful of the year, but the best mouthful of my life’, I imagine it'll now be rather tricky to get a table! The Mousetrap Inn in Bourton on the Water has also been on the cards for a long time, finally we've booked in for Feb - cheers Frank! 

March sees The Chap's birthday, where we'll be celebrating at Le Champignon Sauvage followed by a jaunt to Hereford. BEEFY BOYS. I've heard only good things about those burgers; Instagram has been teasing me with them all year. And there's a trip to Manchester planned for April too, where I expect there'll be a weekend of good eats and drinks. I'm on the hunt for recommendations if any of you have some, though I've already located a Sherry bar. Yes Shez!

It's the big 3-0 in June; how has that happened? So obviously a month of merriment is required. So far all I've narrowed down is going to Bristol and hitting up Box-E; a pint sized restaurant in a shipping container at Wapping Wharf.

Bristol's one of those places I yearn for. It's not far away, and cheap enough to get to, but it's finding the time to fit it in that's the issue. I'm desperate to get myself to Asado to try one of Lucien's mega burgers, Root for more plant based foods, and Swoon for some of the best gelato around.

Locally, I'm still yet to get to The Coconut Tree, and now they've opened up in Oxford and soon in Bristol, it's become a matter of urgency! Cocktails and spicy Sri Lankan food; why haven't I been? The relatively new Korean place down Cheltenham's Lower High Street, Ginger & Garlic, is somewhere I have been to though. The beef bulgogi hot pot was incredible, but I'm itching to go back to try their other dishes, all with a healthy supply of kimchi.

With 100 dishes to try and scoff in London, I also have a list of places I'd like to get to, which is bound to increase throughout the year:

• The Pilgrm - to stay in those BEAUTIFUL rooms and have cocktails in the lounge.
• Little Duck Picklery - from the team behind Duck Soup and Raw Duck, a fermenting kitchen and eatery. 
• Santo Remedio - Mexican in London Bridge. I want to try the guacamole with grasshoppers!
• Londrino - for a taste of Portugal. 
• Xu - the guys from Bao with gorgeous Taiwanese dishes. All of them my way thanks.
• Duddell's - for that Peking duck and goldfish shaped dim sum.
• Winemakers Deptford - good food and good wine. 

And one final thing. After looking at all my posts from last year, shamefully every single one was from where I'd been invited to do a review, or part of a bloggers event. A free meal isn't what I started doing this for. It's a perk - sure- and gives great exposure to new openings or new menus, but I do question having a whole host of bloggers posting about the same place at the same time. I'm not a brand or treat my blog as a business, I just bloody love food and drink. I'd be a fool to turn down excellent opportunities - I won't be doing that - but I'm going to consciously make more of an effort to post about the places I go to and pay for with my hard earned cash (99% of the time). With a quieter and less expensive year than last, this I think I can do. 

2018, let's be having you!