eMeals

Have you ever heard of or tried eMeals? In case you are unfamiliar, you pay a small fee to receive a weekly meal plan with a grocery shopping list. They offer a variety of categories of meal plans- low calorie, budget friendly, low fat, paleo, gluten free, slow cooker, diabetic, kid friendly, simple gourmet, and many others. Most people who try eMeals seem to like it. We tried it about a year ago and really loved it. I mean, if Dave Ramsey endorses something, it must be good, right?? It helped us to save some money by having a meal plan and shopping with intention. We planned out each trip to the grocery store and didn't buy a bunch of extras that we would never eat. We used it for 3 months then decided that we had learned enough about meal planning to venture out on our own. It worked for a couple months, until I went back to my old way of meal planning- remembering at 4:30 that I have a family to feed and trying to scrounge something up at the last minute.

When I found out that I had gestational diabetes, I was at a loss for what food to eat! It wasn't like I could gradually change my diet, I had to change it immediately for the health and safety of myself and my babies. I really didn't know how to eat. I knew that I could manage for breakfast, lunch, and snacks but supper is always the most stressful meal of the day. Making something that a) everyone likes and b) is well-rounded and healthy can sometimes be a little tricky, especially with my style of last minute cooking.  So we decided to go back to eMeals and use their diabetic plan and figured that would at least help me with preparing a supper that the whole family would enjoy and that I could eat. 

So far we have used about a week and a half's worth of meal plans because of Christmas and spending time with family, but we have found some very interesting meals that we will definitely be making again. Our surprise favorite was Pineapple Glazed Meatballs with brown rice. The recipe called for whole wheat couscous but since we are trying to SAVE money, we decided to just use cheapo brown rice. I ate my meatballs on a very small helping of rice and it was so delicious! I gotta tell you, we aren't exactly known for our adventurous eating habits in this family, so this was a little out there for us and we weren't too excited to try it. But we all really liked it and my husband asked me to make it again sometime!  

So lesson learned. Just because it seems unusual to me, doesn't mean that it won't be good. It may just be my new favorite! I'll check back with more interesting meals when we come across them. For now, it's turkey chili leftovers tonight. Yum!!