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| meal planning made easy! (use code cyber35 to save 35% on eMeals subscriptions right now!) |
One of the hardest parts of being a full-time working mom is providing a healthy meal for my family every night. I’m constantly scouring the internet for recipe ideas and have multiple Pinterest boards dedicated to mealtime. Recently, we’ve been in a food rut as I’ve reverted back to the same 3-4 recipes as I just haven’t had the time to find new recipes that I want to try. There’s nothing worse than coming home from a long day at work and drawing a blank on what to cook for dinner. Am I right?
I recently was provided the opportunity to check out eMeals, a meal-planning service that provides you with a weekly meal plan customized to your dietary preferences, family size, and even grocery store preference! Adrian and I have been eating a mostly Paleo diet for almost a year now (Adrian actually started it first and lost about 20 lbs on the plan before I decided joined in to help me lose baby weight) and I loved that eMeals had Paleo meal plans (others include clean-eating, gluten-free, portion control, etc).
After I set up my preferences, I was taken to my meal plan for the week. I was happy to see that the plan provided meal ideas for 2 weeks so that I could have more options to pick and choose from.
The plan also included a grocery list in addition to the daily recipes. I loved that the recipes had the time needed broken down and even annotated in cases where prior marinading was required or if the recipe was super quick to make!
The eMeals service is designed so that you don’t have food waste. All the ingredients you buy will be used in multiple recipes. You’ll also see coupons for your local grocery stores. eMeals actually reports that it saves consumers on average $1,000/year because of the smart meal planning and coupons. Dave Ramsey, celebrity financial planner and tv host, is actually a big supporter of eMeals for this reason. Sign up for eMeals now and use code cyber35 to save 35% on their subscriptions!
For those of you with mobile devices, eMeals has both iPhone and Android apps! I loved not having to write down a grocery list and instead just refer to my phone when shopping at the grocery store. I actually preferred the user interface of the mobile app and referred to it when I was cooking as well. Honestly having the eMeals app is probably going to be the biggest factor that will keep me using the service. It’s just so convenient and I love having everything on my phone with me all the time!
Recipes!
And now on to the cooking. I prepared a full course dinner that eMeals suggested which included a Spicy Southwest Chicken Thighs and Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Leeks.
Spicy Southwest Chicken Thighs:
serves 3-6
Ingredients:
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 1 medium lime)
3 T coconut aminos (can substitue soy sauce or tamari if you’re not Paleo)
2 T raw honey
1 1/2 T minced chipotle chile in adobo sauce(I skipped this as I didn’t want it spicy for Dylan and it was still delish)
2 lb skinless chicken thighs
1 avocado (optional)
Directions:
- Mix lime juice, coconut aminos, honey, and chipotle in large plastic zip-top freezer bag.
- Add chicken; seal bag and turn to coat.
- Chill in refrigerator for at least 1 hour (I let it sit for 6 hours).
The recipe calls to roast the chicken in the oven. I actually just stir-fried it as it’s easier and what I prefer (it took about 20 minutes to stir-fry). However, here are the instructions if you want to roast the chicken.
- Preheat oven to 400 degree.
- Remove chicken and discard marinade.
- Place chicken on large, foil-lined baking sheet.
- Bake 35 minutes or until chicken is done. I ate this with a side of sliced avocado and it was delicious!
Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Leeks:
serves 3-6
Ingredients:
3-4 medium sweet potatoes (~2 1/4 lb), peeled if you prefer (I left the skin on mine), cut into 2″ pieces
2 medium leeks, slicked into 1″ pieces
2 T extra virgin olive oil (I had to use about 4T to coat everything)
1 teaspoon lemon pepper spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Combine sweet potatoes, leeks, olive oil, lemon pepper, salt, and thyme in 13×9 baking dish; toss to coat.
- Bake 40 minutes or until potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally.
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| You’ll want to use 3-4 sweet potatoes. I took this picture after I made the dish and only had 1 sweet potato left. |
My boys thoroughly enjoyed this meal! I made this meal on Sunday and actually have already made the sweet potatoes with leeks dish again and it was so delicious!
eMeals also has a special Paleo Roast Turkey Recipe available for free. Just in time for Thanksgiving! And don’t forget about the cyber35 coupon code if you want to subscribe and check out other Thanksgiving recipes.
* Disclosure: I was provided with a subscription to eMeals via Markerly.com. All content and opinions are honest and my own. Thanks so much for supporting the sponsors that support this blog.
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looks yummy and healthy too!! 😀
Animated Confessions
Aw, father and son feeding each other, so cute! I was starting to think about how I'm/we're going to manage meals once we have a little one running around, new ideas are helpful 🙂
omg, are you expecting? a huge congratulations if you are! mealtime is definitely one of the trickier tasks to tackle with a toddler running around. we try as hard as possible to all sit down together as a family for meals as I want Dylan to realize it's a time for everyone to sit together and talk. However, come dinner time there are definitely days when he just doesn't have the attention span to sit for more than 5 minutes. we've had to bring books to the table as well as a few tabletop toys as well. i've also started experimenting with food art and that also seems to help as he takes more time eating as he enjoys the pictures made from the food. i'm hoping to write up a post on food art for toddlers in the next few weeks. 🙂
The dishes look delicious and healthy! =) If you're on a Paleo diet, does that mean you can't eat junk food (e.g., ice cream, chips, cookies, cupcakes, etc.)?
there's no processed, pre-packaged foods allowed on paleo but there are certainly paleo-ified versions of the traditional treats. otherwise i think the paleo diet would be hard to sustain long-term without the occasional treat. 🙂