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Bandwagons, Eating, menu plan Monday, partner campaign

Put meal-planning on autopilot

11/18/2013 Nichole

Disclaimer: eMeals.com gave Nichole a one-year subscription in exchange for a review. All opinions are Nichole’s own.

It’s been a little over a month since I started using eMeals, and I’ve mentioned the meal-planning service in a few posts since then. One of the selling points of eMeals is that it’s a money-saver. The idea is that you choose your grocery store of choice, and it gives you a meal plan based on what’s on sale there. Our grocery store isn’t one of those available, though, so we didn’t see any savings.

As long as my grocery bill didn’t go up, though, I was really more concerned about how the food tasted. So:

Is the eMeals food any good?

Overall, I’ve been very happy with the quality and quantity of the recipes. A few of the recipes were only so-so, and only one was straight-up gross. I’m signed up for the family plan, which it says makes 3-6 servings, and we’ve had ample leftovers with each recipe. That’s been a great thing for lunch the next day.

eMeals offers 12 different meals plans, and I wanted to try out as many as possible before I wrote my review. “As many as possible” wound up being three. I started with the low-fat plan, because I’ve been doing Weight Watchers and figured they’d be compatible. The Philly Cheesesteak Stromboli and the Orange Pancakes from the plan were both simple and tasty, but I still haven’t figured out how the stromboli qualified as low-fat.

The Simple Gourmet option sounded like it would be right up our alley. I knew it wasn’t pretty much right away, though. I use convenience ingredients like cream-of-whatever soups every now and then, but the Simple Gourmet menu was packed with processed ingredients. You’re only supposed to be able to change plans once a month, but I emailed the eMeals support team and they swapped me right over to my next choice: The Clean-Eating Plan.

I was vaguely familiar with Clean Eating as a trendy diet thing, but as it turns out it’s pretty similar to the way I generally cook. The recipes are most all from scratch using fresh ingredients, but they aren’t fussy or difficult to make. The one terrible dish — a pumpkin-sausage-pasta monstrosity — we tried was from the Clean Eating plan, but every other meal from this plan has been delightful. The Sweet & Smoky Bacon-Wrapped Chicken, Chicken Pot Pie, and Orecchiette with Roasted Vegetables were especially good.

Is eMeals worth the money?

A one-year subscription to eMeals is $58, which works out to less than $5 a month. I never used the full week’s menu, so I didn’t use the provided grocery list. And I also really like doing my own meal-planning, most of the time. For someone who doesn’t have the time or inclination to put together a meal plan and grocery list every month, though, I think it’s a great deal.

But that’s not all. Right now eMeals is doing a Cyber Monday / Black Friday promotion, which you can go ahead and take advantage of by going to eMeals via this link and using the coupon code CYBER. That makes it $21 for a three-month subscription; $33 for six months; or $40 for a year. That’s a great price for a really handy service.

The bottom line on eMeals

The majority of the recipes are delicious, and it would be a huge time-saver if you used every meal on the plan. I’ve loved getting a fresh batch of recipes in my inbox every week; I’m 98 percent sure I’ll renew my subscription once it runs out.

This week’s menu plan

Despite how much I’ve enjoyed eMeals, we aren’t using any of their recipes this week because Rockford was in charge of the grocery shopping this weekend, and he’s a Seat Of His Pants shopper. He did a good job, even if he didn’t use a list.

Monday: Grocery store buffet: We’re going to be running hither and yon today, so we’ll be grazing at the grocery store for dinner.
Tuesday: Chicken pot pie: Rockford picked up a frozen chicken pot pie on his last foray to Trader Joe’s. I hope it’s good.
Wednesday: Tortellini: Easy & kid-friendly.
Thursday: Baked potato soup: Also easy and also kid-friendly, if your kids are less picky than mine.
Friday: Pizza: I’m going to be getting started on some Thanksgiving prep on Friday, so we’ll be ordering pizza for dinner.

Bandwagons, menu plan Monday, partner campaign, recipes

Two-thirds of last week’s eMeals recipes were great

11/04/2013 Nichole 4 Comments

Disclaimer: eMeals.com has provided Nichole with a free subscription in exchange for a review. Nichole’s opinions remain her own, and she remains very opinionated about food.

Last week we tried a couple of eMeals recipes, and only one of them — a pasta with a pumpkin-sausage sauce — was a flop. To be fair, that’s not something I would normally even consider trying. It wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t fit our preferred flavor profile at all. It smelled amazing while it was cooking, though. I was pretty disappointed that it wasn’t as delicious as it smelled.

The Sweet and Smoky Bacon-Wrapped Chicken, however, was a big hit. Poppy said it tasted like “something a cowboy would eat,” which must’ve been a compliment because she ate it without complaint. None of the rest of us had trouble with it, either.

Sweet and Smoky Bacon-Wrapped Chicken

Author: eMeals.com

Ingredients

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half lengthwise
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
6 slices natural uncured bacon
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons honey

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Sprinkle chicken evenly with salt, pepper, paprika, and chili powder. Wrap 1 slice bacon around each piece of chicken; secure with wooden toothpicks.
Heat oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat; brown chicken, in batches, 2 to 3 minutes on each side.
Arrange chicken in the skillet, and bake 15 minutes or until chicken is done and bacon is crisp.
Drizzle with honey during last 5 minutes of baking.

We also tried the Chicken Tikka Masala — which Pete thought was called “Chicken Chicken Masala” — and it received high marks, too. I couldn’t find garam masala at the store, so I found an “easy garam masala” recipe and mixed up my own. Super simple, and it was way less expensive than buying it because I already had all of the spices involved.

This week we have a couple birthdays, so we’re once again not doing the full week of eMeals recipes. I’d hate to have a pumpkin pasta scenario on my birthday. So we’re going with things we already know on the birthdays and eMeals the rest of the week!

Monday: ???

Today’s my birthday, and I think we’re going out. I haven’t decided where I’d like to go. Possibly to Firehouse Subs, because I am hopelessly devoted to their brisket & cheddar sandwich.

Tuesday: Chicken Pot Pie

I love a good chicken pot pie, and I’m really hoping that the eMeals version is just that. There are biscuits involved instead of a crust, though, so we’ll see.

Wednesday: ???

A friend asked us last week if we wanted to go out for dinner this Wednesday, but I haven’t heard back from him to confirm. So we might be going out again. But maybe not.

Thursday: Cheeseburgers

Me: Hey Pete, what would you like for your birthday dinner?
Pete: Hmmm, I don’t know. Probably cheeseburgers.

And so cheeseburgers it is!

menu plan Monday, partner campaign

In which I try to take the “planning” out of the menu-plan equation

10/07/2013 Nichole 1 Comment

Disclaimer: eMeals.com has provided Nichole with a free subscription in exchange for a review. Because of the nature of the product and the fact that Nichole writes/thinks about food a lot, you can expect to read at least a little bit about eMeals every week for the next month or so. Nichole’s opinions remain her own, and she remains very opinionated about food.

My meal-planning routine usually consists of taking a spin through my Menu Plan Monday archives — because I can never seem to remember what we eat from week to week — and then looking through my I’d Eat That board on Pinterest for a few new ideas.

For the next couple of weeks, though, I’m not going to do either or those things.

Instead, I’m going to be downloading a weekly menu plan from eMeals, which will include a grocery list of everything I need for that week’s meals. I usually spend at least 30 minutes of my Friday evening pulling together my menu plan and compiling the grocery list; I’m looking forward to finding out what else I could be doing with that half-hour. (Handicrafts? Learning a new skill? Watching more television? The possibilities are endless, but the probability is sadly the latter!)

I’m not expecting to follow the eMeals plan to the letter every week, because (1) we can be kind of picky and (2) our schedule lately means I haven’t had time to actually prepare a meal every night. This week, for example, we have “Nutcracker” rehearsal, an American Heritage Girls meeting and all sorts of soccer practices, so we’re only going to be having two of the eMeals meals. It’s not that they’re especially complicated or lengthy; I just tend to lean on recipes — and I use that word lightly here — with which I’m already familiar.

Monday: Grilled cheese sandwiches: I used to always serve tomato soup with our grilled cheeses. And then we all admitted that none of us really likes tomato soup, so we don’t bother with that anymore.
Tuesday: Spaghetti: I think might even have some meatballs in the freezer!
Wednesday: Beef Chalupas: This will be the first eMeals recipe we’re trying. It’s supposed to be served with “crispy zucchini and corn.” Side dishes are never my strong suit; I’m hoping having it all planned out for me will help with that!
Thursday: Philly Cheesesteak Stromboli: And this is the second of the eMeals! It uses refrigerated pizza dough and roast beef from the deli, among other things. It’s served with Cajun french fries, which are really what sold me on trying this meal.
Friday: Out: Poppy will be doing her very first tae kwon do testing on Friday, and I’m preemptively planning to go out for a celebratory dinner. Go P!