So we have been doing the Emeals trial. It's going well enough except for a few things.......
1. The kids are kinda picky so it's pretty much a sure thing that someone won't like the Emeal dinner of the day. Tonight we had mushroom meatball soup which I admit I wasn't a fan of myself and neither were two of the kids. And spinach salad with peaches on the side. My older daughter had a hummus quesadilla (she hates cheese) so I made her that. My son tasted each item and was not a fan so he grabbed some yogurt instead. My husband liked it... but honestly he will eat pretty much everything I make, haha so there is that.
2. Some of the meals this week have had a lot of prep time involved. And to be honest this is just a lazy thing in me where I am not into the amount of prep at this time. I did look at the 30 min meals to see if they would work better but didn't see any offered on the current menu that would work better than the low carb choices. I did add in one kids meal of sloppy joes to try this week.
There really wasn't a great choice coming up for July 4th. So I opted to make homemade potato salad and grill up some hot dogs. And I'm going to make one of the coleslaw recipes on the E-meals plan that I printed out.
3. Bry wondered if the price maybe isn't great to take on while we are getting out of debt, which I think he does have a point about. And the fact that I have to end up offering something that one or more of the kids will eat on top of the meal... well that's kinda a downer and adds more cook time for me and we have to weigh the cost of that into the mix.
4. Some of the items for the meals I can't find at my local grocery store and then I end up having to make one or more trips to another store to find them.
5. Probably one of the biggest issues for me is that many of the meals involve the oven, and using the oven during the summer here is something I really need to avoid when it's over 100 degrees everyday. It would be nice if they had a meal plan that didn't rely on oven use for those of us who prefer grilling or even stove top meals.
We talked it over with the kids tonight and discussed just having simple meals and a weekly meal schedule instead of the E-meals and using any extra grocery budget money for our debt snowball instead. And keeping snacks simple
Maybe something like this:
Breakfast options: Pancakes, Eggs, Yogurt and granola, cereal, Peanut butter toast, English muffins
Lunch options: Nachos, Lunch meat sandwiches (when the budget allows), Quesidallas, Loaded baked potatoes, Pasta Fazol, cheese and crackers with fruit on the side.
Dinner:
Sunday: Spagetti with garlic bread (I try to do low carb so I'm not sure if I would eat this - but one day a week probably won't be to bad).
Monday: Hot dogs and homemade potato salad
Tuesday: Tacos (I learned how to make flank steak from E-meals so I bet I could make some carne asada for tacos) with homemade guacomole.
Wednesday: Sloppy Joes, corn on the cob and potato salad
Thursday: Order in Pizza
Friday: BLT's and fresh fruit
Saturday: Breakfast for dinner
Our older daughter isn't much of a fan of eating the same kind of meal each week... but at the same time... she is really picky so pleasing her is hard but not impossible. She does like all the meals on this list minus anything with cheese or eggs, so it is doable.
I really tend to get hung up on side dishes. I will admit that the Emeals is giving good side dish choices, the green beans with brown butter and almonds I liked a lot.
I am not sure what's going to happen but I know I need a set strict list to follow. I like that about Emeals, the detailed list to stick with.
So I guess we shall see how the next week goes and go from there.
~Have a blessed night~
