What They Say

“eMeals has been created to provide a kid-friendly and family-uniting meal planning resource for busy Moms and frugal family cooks. Each meal plan is based on the current sales at the grocery stores, with plan options categorized according to store and/or weight management strategy. The recipes are delicious, simple and easy to follow. Each plan is new every week and has a corresponding grocery list by section. Almost every week includes a crock-pot recipe and easy dinner ideas. There are meal plans for two people, for a low fat diet, a low carb diet, and for those who are following a portion control system, as well!”

What I say

I’ve always been horrible at meal planning. I forget something or I don’t grab enough. I just suck at it pretty much. I always try and make a list but it never seems to work because as I said, I forget stuff! Well with eMeals.com That isn’t a problem. Not only do they give simple recipes every week that are printable, they also include a spreadsheet of the things you need while grocery shopping!

One of the first things we tried were stuffed peppers. We opted for the Low fat grocery list. Anyway Chris had been begging me to make stuffed peppers for ever! Well I’m not a ground beef person really and I thought that was the only way they could be made. The recipe that was given proved that wrong pretty fast. They were probably one of the most delicious things I’ve ever made since I’m not that great at cooking. I can bake but cooking is an art that is really lost on me.

I enjoyed that when picking my plan, I had a variety to choose from. I could choose from various stores or just a general meal plan. There was also a Clean Eating, Gluten Free, Low Carb, Low Fat, Portion Control, Vegetarian, Natural & Organic plans that you could pick. We went with the Low Fat one and really enjoyed many of the recipes that they had!

Giveaway Time!

eMeals.com is giving away a 3 month subscription to the meal plan of your choice! This giveaway will run from now until May 5th 2012 at 12:01 EST! The mandatory entry must be done for all other entries to count!

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On Tuesday I decided to try to make a new type of muffin that I hadn’t ever made before. I usually stick with my banana or banana and chocolate chip muffins. This time though I thought I would try some fresh strawberry muffins. My sister had said something about making some blueberry ones from a package. Since we can’t make those because of potential allergen cross over and I really wanted to try something new, I decided to go with strawberries. I looked up a recipes since I wasn’t sure if my banana one would work well with these type of muffins. Although I do plan on trying them with my original recipe, I wanted to see how they should taste first.

I found an easy recipe on AllRecipes.Com. It was pretty simple and I all I did to alter it was double the recipe.

Recipe-

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup white sugar

3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups chopped strawberries

These were a little different in instruction than I’m used to. I usually have to put the wet ingredients in the big bowl and mix the dry in later. With this it was the opposite.

Step One

Chop Strawberries.

Step Two

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix Oil, Milk and Egg in a small bowl. Beat lightly. Set aside.

Step Three

In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, salt, baking soda. Stir. Add strawberries to large bowl. Fold in until all the strawberries are cover in flour mixture.

Step Four

Add oil,milk, and egg mix to large bowl. Stir until mixed well.

Step Five

Line pan with paper or foil cups and fill with batter using 1/8 or 1/4 cup.

Step Six

Bake for 25 minutes. Cool for 10-15 before eating.

Some things that I did. I used a cupcake pan instead of a muffin pan. The make for the perfect sized muffins for the kids. I also suggest using the 1/4 cup when measuring out the batter. I rotated my pan 180 degrees half way through. With the cupcake pan this recipe gave me 30 strawberry muffins but again I doubled it from the original recipe.

Now on to the nutrition. Overall they aren’t too terrible a piece.

Next time I try this recipe I will be using 1/4 cup of the oil and 1/4 of unsweetened applesauce to cut down on the calories and fat. I will also be purchasing some low sodium baking powder soon because until I made this recipe and put it in to see the nutrition of them, I had no clue my baking powder had so much sodium. So if I can cut those two things these muffins will be even healthier. The kids loved them and when they are hot, they are absolutely delicious! I can’t wait to make them again!

I have recently come to love my slow cooker again. It has been making meals really easy for me and they always end up super delicious. I was looking around online to find a healthy chicken recipe. I enjoy chicken much more than I like beef, not to mention we just made a giant roast a couple of day beforehand. One of the first recipes I found was for Slow cooker Chicken Fajitas from Kalyn’s Kitchen.

Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas–
1. 2-2.5lbs of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
2. 1 Green Bell Pepper
3. 1 Red Bell Pepper
4. 1 Onion(I prefer white so that’s what we used)
5. 1 Tsp Ground Cumin
6. 2 Tsp Chili Powder
7. ¼ Tsp Salt
8. Lime(about two)
9. cup Chicken Broth
10. A dash of Black Pepper(I added this. I enjoy pepper)

Directions were simple.
1– Slice Onion and Bell pepper in to thin slices. Add to Slow Cooker
2– Trim Chicken. Then cut into pieces.(Mine were about an inch to and inch and a half long.) Add to slow cooker
3– Cut limes in half. Squeeze juice all over the chicken.
4– Mix Salt, Chili Powder and Ground Cumin with Chicken Broth.
5– Poor over Chicken and veggies. Add dash of pepper over top.
6– Cook for 3-4 on high or 6-7 on low.

It looked simple enough so I headed out to Aldi to grab everything I didn’t have. Their prices are usually very reasonable and they have a nice selection of fruits, veggies, and meats. When I got there, I was glad to see it wasn’t really busy yet. It made going through the store that much easier. They had everything I needed for the fajitas. I wasn’t sure they were going to have the limes that it called for but again pleasantly surprised that they did!

When I got home to prepare everything, it was very fast. I had everything in the slow cooker in about 30 minutes. And it only took that long because of the lack of counter space that we have in our apartment. When I first read the recipe I read 2 limes, not to TBSP of lime juice. Well I added three. It ended up over powering the flavor of everything else to me. I also usually cook on low so it cooked for 6 hours and 45 minutes. The chicken completely fell apart. I don’t know if that was how it was supposed to be but for us it was.

So next time I’ll defiantly do 1 lime, maybe 1 and a half. I’ll add 3TSP Chili Powder and 1 TSP Ground Cumin for more of a kick. Other than that it was a hit with the family. They really loved them and since Aldi made them so affordable(For the Chicken, Onions, Peppers, Limes, and broth it was less than $8!) it will probably become more of a weekly meal while I tweak it so it’s perfect for our family!

You can take a more depth look into my shopping trip by looking through my Google+ Story!

“This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All opinions expressed are truthful and my own.”