Family Week Kick-Off with E-MEALZ

I love to cook. I pretty much cook dinner at home at least 5 nights a week. It’s a lot cheaper than eating out and I know it’s a lot healthier for my family. What I really hate, though, is having to come up with different dinner ideas. Pleasing a family of 5 isn’t easy, especially since I’m the only vegetarian in the house. Most nights I’ll either make something vegetarian for the whole family… or I’ll make a meat dish and sit and watch my family eat as I nibble on a couple of side dishes or a salad. Still, I am always asking the kids what they want for dinner. You would think after all these years I would have an arsenal of recipes. Wrong. I still struggle to come up with new ideas.

When I was at BlogHer a few weeks ago, one of my roommates started telling us about the company she worked for. Some online site that offered weekly meal plans - complete with shopping lists to your favorite stores and the prices you’ll pay. Seriously… how good could this be? Would my family even like the meal suggestions? I went online to do some research and checked out the sample plan they had and decided that I would give it a try.

E-Mealz is this amazing site that was started by two sisters, Jane DeLaney and Jenny Cochran who were frustrated with coming up with healthy yet frugal meals for their family. Kind of sounds familiar. You choose the type of meal plan that best suits your family as well as the grocery store you shop in most frequently. I printed out the weekly meal plan - mine was the Vegetarian Plan and I chose Walmart as my local grocery store. This turned out to be a lot more fun than I imagined. I got a shopping list geared towards Walmart products, complete with prices that I would spend and the menu plans even included recipes and side dishes AND the staples I should have around the house that I would need to cook with. It had everything in one place that I would need to make a week full of dinners. Awesome!

This is what I made last night. (Recipe reprinted courtesy of E-MEALS)

Ingredients:
5 oz. bag of spinach
1/2 c. diced onion
1 tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
15 oz. ricotta cheese
1 c. egg substitute
3 tbs. flour
1/2 c. shredded cheese
dash nutmeg
Deep dish pie crust
1 c. sour cream
Paprika

Begin by steaming spinach in several inches of water until just tender. Drain. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Saute onions in butter until tender. Add all remaining ingredients except sour cream. Pour into pie crust and cover with sour cream. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool.

I wasn’t sure how the Spinach Pie would go over… it looked and sounded good but my kids are not big spinach eaters and I was expecting them to give me a look and wrinkle up their noses and ask me what I was thinking making a Spinach Pie. But no… they LOVED it! Crazy, but this was one of the best meals we’ve ever had. All my kids insisted I make this again… soon.

I’m just a little annoyed that I didn’t know about E-Mealz sooner. I’m sure it would have saved me a lot of distress the past couple of years. They even have a blog full of recipes, tips on organizing and simplifying your life and planning fun for your family.

You all know I would never recommend anything I didn’t really love, and I really love this meal plan. And believe it or not, you can even get low-fat and low-calorie plans. I know… how awesome is that?

EMEALZ provided me with a free month subscription to their website in exchange for reviewing their company. No other compensation was provided. All opinions are my own. And I really do love them… wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.