A little over a year ago my husband and I made a subscription to emeals.com. I have to admit at first I didn't want to do it. I was doing fine a cooking dinner and I didn't want to "waste" money subscribing to something that I could do myself. And the reason my husband wanted to do it? Because Dave Rasmey recommended it.
After a couple weeks I have to admit I was converted. I told everyone about it. I loved that all I had to do was print off my grocery list that told me exactly how much I needed of everything. I loved the organization the lack of thinking that went into evening meals. I loved all of it.
My husband was still a fan but not the hugest because sometimes it was more than he wanted to spend on food.
My kids weren't always a fan because we would try new recipes and for them it was just to different.
After our year subscription ended we chose not to renew it. Mainly because we had a year of meal plans printed off and we really liked the meals on them. Second, because we wanted to save that money for other things.
We got out of the habit a little bit for a while and I will admit I HATED IT.
- I hated trying to think of something to make.
-Hated not having everything in the house that I needed
-We were lacking on the fresh vegetable content that I just absolutely love about dinner.
I told my husband we needed to sign up again because we just weren't making it work. He gave me a bit of the runaround and was dragging his feet about renewing it. Which was good because then one day it hit me!
I CAN MAKE MY OWN MEAL PLAN!
- I have tons of cookbooks that I never use
- I have all those recipes on pinterest pinned
- I am an organized person
- I love to try new things
So this last week before we went to make our weekly grocery trip I made up my weekly meal plan. I used several magazines, cookbooks and even online recipes that I have been meaning to try.
AND IT GETS BETTER FOR ALL OF YOU!
I will share my weekly meal plans for all to use. The only catch is a lot of my recipes are not my own. I have taken them from cookbooks or other websites. If it's a website I will link it, if it's my own I will share it. If it's a cookbook I will tell you which cookbook and you can go buy it or google a recipe for it online.
Why would I do this?
I have 5 reasons that I do this.
Reason #1- Less Stress
When I have a weekly meal plan it takes the guessing out of dinner. I have already figured out for the week what we are going to eat, I've got all the items I needed at the grocery store at the beginning of the week and I can plan my time appropriately because I already know how long they will take to make. I am just like all those young mom out there. I am running about 100 different directions all at once all day. Plus I am a private music teacher. I have very strict time where I can make dinner and get it on the plate before we had to run to football practice, or gymnastics, or something else under the sun. I don't have time to stress about what to make.
Reason #2- Cost
I don't know about all of you but I'm on a budget. I have a set amount of money that I can spend on groceries and then the rest goes to bills. Welcome to the life of a teacher right? When I have a meal plan and a grocery list right in front of me I don't buy those items that I "might" need or would "really like to have". I stick to my grocery list which about 95% of the times saves me a ton of money.
Reason #3- Less Waste
This can also go along with the cost thing. How many times have you gone to the store and seen all those fresh vegetables and fruits and though OOOO AWWW, and then buy them because how could you not make something with them? What happens? Life happens and then you have all these fruits and vegetables that end up being thrown away because you didn't make what you thought you might make. Or you see something and think "oh yeah I was going to make that dinner the other night maybe I will make it now because I bought this." Just to get home and realize that you still don't have all the items you need for that recipe. So it ends up going bad.
When I have a meal plan with a set grocery list I have exactly what I need and how much I need of it. I also try to make recipes that have a few overlapping ingredients. Like and onion. One recipes doesn't use a whole onion or all the cilantro, or green onions. So I will try to overlap them so that several use those items that week and then I make sure I use it all up. We hardly ever have to throw out fresh produce because it's gone bad anymore. I think I might have to throw out a cucumber every couple of months and that's it.
Reason #4- Try New Things
We all have our favorite foods. But there are MILLIONS of recipes out there just waiting to be gobbled up! When we did emeals.com we did the clean eating plan. I am all about lots of fresh produce and minimal meat. In Fact we would do one vegetarian meal a week. I would get stuck in my favorites or the recipes that I always make because I had them on hand because I knew how to shop for them. We tried so many knew and different recipes and I was surprised what my kids did like. Black bean burgers? Who woulda thought my kids would eat something so "strange". Even my husband and I would turn our heads sometimes and then be surprised at how good it turned out.
Try new things you might be surprised what you like.
Some of you might be wondering about your kids. My kids are pretty picky especially about tomatoes. (So Frustrating!) But we stuck to our guns and they always had to try at least one bite. They ended up doing pretty good. For example. One night we made this baked salmon with pesto and feta. Our second oldest didn't want to eat it and she said she didn't like the feta cheese on it. She ended up devouring it. My son took a bite with the feta cheese and then scooped it off the rest of the time. That's ok but I want my kids to learn that there is so much out there when it comes to food.
Reason #5- Have Fun
Have fun with it. Let your kids pick out a wacky meal every once in a while. Make grocery shopping part of your date night to avoid taking the kids with you. (I hate taking my kids grocery shopping. They think it's an amusement park or something) Make it a family thing to make dinner together.
My husband and I have had a lot less arguments in the evening because we already know what's for dinner and it's usually almost done when he gets home. USUALLY! Like I said we are a busy family.
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