I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before (800 times, approximately) in the past, but I’m not domestic. At all. Not even a little bit. 

So when it comes to that whole cooking thing… yeah, not so much for me.

I love baking, but not cooking.

And then I thought about it, and the reason that I don’t like cooking is because I hate meal planning! Every time I find a recipe online it seems to take wayyyy too much time and effort to whip up the dish. I mean, I don’t need anything fancy, I just want to feed the Husband and I on a semi-consistent basis.

And, it never fails, that when I plan ahead to make a good meal, make a grocery list, buy the groceries, etc. I always forget something and have to run back to the store or I never make the meal and everything goes bad… I’m seriously a kitchen disaster. The Husband can attest to this.

*Side story: The first time the Husband’s parents met my dad, my (now) FIL says to my dad, “So… Lisa’s not very domestic, is she?” Hahahahaha!

And then eMeals came along and changed how I view meal planning forever.

eMeals

Basically, I pay them a few bucks a month and they provide me with meal plans for my week, with a grocery list to make sure I can get everything I need at once.

This is how it looks in my house: 

1. I’ll go over the meals and decide which ones look really good. (We never do them all because we do still eat out with friends a few times per week!)
2. I’ll go through the grocery list to cross off items we don’t need. This includes items we already have in our kitchen and/or the ingredients for meals we won’t end up making.
3. The Husband goes to the grocery store and gets the ingredients.
4. And then one of us will whip up a delicious and healthy dinner for us both! (I should point out that when I was unemployed I did most of the cooking, now the Husband has taken over. Thanks, Husband!)

eMeals has seriously made my life so much easier and I’ve told approximately 80 bijillion people in my life about it.

I mean, I’m sure there are some people that love scouring Pinterest for recipes they can actually use, but I’m not one of those people, so this was like magic for me.

This is on my to-create recipe list:

Ultimate Blueberry Muffins with Oat Streusel

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups flour, divided
• ¼ cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1½ cups fresh blueberries
• 1 cup low-fat strawberry yogurt
• ⅓ cup canola oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine ¼ cup flour, oats and raw sugar in a small bowl.
3. Using a snapping motion with your fingers, rub butter into oat mixture until large crumbs form; set aside.
4. Whisk together remaining 2 cups flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl; stir in blueberries.
5. Combine yogurt, oil, egg and vanilla in a medium bowl; whisk until well blended.
6. Add yogurt mixture to flour mixture; stir gently just until moistened.
7. Fill 16 muffin cups lined with paper baking liners evenly with batter; sprinkle evenly with reserved oat streusel.
8. Bake 22 to 24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes.

_{Nutrition Information (per muffin): Calories 173; Fat 6.8g (sat 1.5g); Protein 3g; Carb 25g; Fiber 1g; Chol 16mg; Sodium 143mg}

* Recipe from eMeals, obviously!

Pros:

• Our meal recommendations are delivered to my inbox every week.
• We’ve truly loved some of the recipes that we would never have tried otherwise.
• Since eMeals ‘knows’ we’re only serving two people, the shopping list/recipe only makes enough for just us and we rarely end up with extra ingredients that go bad. This can be adjusted for larger families. I love portion control! Every time I find a recipe online it’s for like 8 people and then we end up with waaaaay too much food, since I suck at the math necessary to cut down the serving sizes.
• The meals never take that long to prepare and the instructions are always simple enough that (even) I can handle it.
• The suggested meals for each day include an entree and a side dish, so sometimes we just make one or the other or mix and match… but it allows for a full meal and a lot of flexibility.
• You can pick which sort of plan you want. We chose Mediterranean because we eat a lot of fish and I don’t eat meat. But there are so many other great options! There are meal plans by food type, by store… it’s seriously so well thought out and it makes life easy-peasy even for people who have strict diets.

Cons:

• It isn’t free. (Typical. Nothing good in life is free!)
• Sometimes the meals just aren’t for us, but we’re fine not having a meal planned out for EVERY day of the week.
• This is only for recipes and shopping lists, whereas other (way more expensive) plans also deliver the food to your door! 

If you think this may interest you at all, I encourage you to try eMeals out for a month or so to see how you like it! It was definitely a game-changer for us. Sometimes we go a week or so without using any eMeal recommendations, other times (when we’re more motivated) we stick to it every single day. I especially used eMeals when I was at home (unemployed), because the side options are perfect for a healthy lunch.

AND if you still aren’t sure, enter this giveaway and eMeals will give one reader a three-month dinner subscription for free! (But I have a feeling you may will want to extend your subscription after that time.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

* I was given a year subscription for eMeals to honestly review their service, and I’m so glad that I love it and can share it with all of you! If you are a business owner interested in having me review your product, let me know!

Cheers (and may the odds be ever in your favor)!