Website: http://www.e-mealz.com/
Cost: 3 months/$21, 6 months/$35, 1 year/$58, renews automatically.
E-Mealz's big idea is shopping on a budget and they do budget well. Each week, in their shopping list, they include the estimated price for each item at the store you've selected. Their meals almost never come in over budget. The stores include Aldi, Kroger, Publix, Ralph's, Whole Foods, and Wal-mart. They also have an "any store" option so that you can still use their meal plans if none of the listed stores are convenient. That's the case here in Virginia. I opted for the any store choice, as I usually shop at Trader Joe's, Food Lion, or Harris Teeter. The cost estimates were pretty close to what they said they would be, but I know that if we were still in Hawaii, there's no way the prices would match up. Just remember that if you live in a more expensive part of the country, the prices are estimates and you'll be paying more.
When you select a menu, you pick based on the store, and then you select the number of people you'll be cooking for, and then the type of menu you want. Since it's just the Sailor and me, I usually cook for 2 people. However, the E-mealz menus for 1 or 2 only have 5 recipes, whereas the family meals have 7. I don't understand this concept at all. If I'm paying the same price for the menu, how come I don't get the same number of recipes? When I menu plan, I usually only plan for 5 meals. We eat out once a week and have leftovers or something the other night. But I'm also a picky eater, I like being able to choose the 5 I want and leave out 2. Most menu plans indicate on the shopping list which meal an item will be used in, so it isn't hard to go through the list and cross off ingredients for the meals I won't be making. I do this when I go through the kitchen to see what items I already have, and it doesn't add any extra time. But if they only provide 5 meals, I don't have that option. For that reason, I picked the family meals and halve the recipes myself. It's more unnecessary work, and I don't see why E-Mealz does it that way.
You also have to select your meal plan based on dietary needs. You can pick the regular meal plan, gluten free, low carb, low fat, portion control, vegetarian, and natural & organic. There are lots of different choices so your needs should be covered by one of the menus, but there's no concession for multiple needs or different preferences from family members. I originally signed up for the vegetarian meal plan, but changed to the regular menu shortly thereafter. They allow you to change your menu once during your subscription.
The meals themselves are ok. A few were really good, most were ok, and one or two were flops. The format is concise, but sometimes a little too short. If you don't cook regularly, you may have issues following the directions. Their meals aren't overly complicated though, and almost never gourmet. They do have simple side dish suggestions. They're fairly healthy, and even better if you choose the vegetarian or natural and organic plans.
E-Mealz is definitely a good budget friendly choice and if I hadn't tried a few other menu plans, I think it would definitely suffice. The cost is a little high for what you get. With Saving Dinner and Relish!, you get a lot more for your money. With E-Mealz, you're forced to choose a specific store, serving size, and type of menu with your subscription. There's not much room for flexibility. In order to save money on your subscription, look for coupon codes, sales, or offers on sites like Groupon.com. Menu plans are posted on their website each week, and remain up for an additional week. There is no archive, so make sure you save your menus!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Menu Plan Monday - Jan 2
Ancho Chile Beef (and Chicken) Wraps, Black Beans with Feta
Quinoa Burgers, Greek Salad
Slow Cooker Lasagna, Salad
Garlic and Rosemary Chicken, Roasted Cauliflower
Stuffed Poblanos, Orange Almond Salad
Quinoa Burgers, Greek Salad
Slow Cooker Lasagna, Salad
Garlic and Rosemary Chicken, Roasted Cauliflower
Stuffed Poblanos, Orange Almond Salad
5 Dinners, 1 Hour Review
Website: http://5dinners1hour.blogspot.com/
Cost: $5 a month, billed $15 every 3 months.
The idea behind this menu mailer is simple and practical. You spend one hour each week preparing meals. Meals are then stored in the refrigerator and cooked throughout the week. Each week contains at least one meal that can be frozen.
I was very enticed by the idea of spending just one hour in the kitchen each week making dinners. Think about how easy clean up would be!
When I received the actual menus though, I was highly disappointed. First and most importantly, the recipes were lacking. Almost every week contained one sandwich recipe. The most disappointing was the ham and swiss cups recipe (which, coincidentally was reposted on her blog just yesterday). Take some bread, tear it up, shove it in a muffin tin, put some ham on top, and then put a slice of processed cheese on top of that. Am I really paying for this service? The other recipes consist of casseroles and cream of something soups. Most weeks called for very few fresh vegetables, and there was only one recipe in the two weeks I used them that we actually liked. The directions are sometimes unclear, and often very simplistic (cook according to package directions).
While it seems like there could be a lot of flexibility in this menu system, there really isn't. You have to think carefully about the recipes you'll eat at the end of the week. Planning ahead will be crucial to ensuring that you end up with edible meals by day 5.
The format leaves something to be desired also. The fonts change from box to box, the grocery list isn't on its own page for easy printing, and there are no graphics or pictures. The very first month of my subscription, there were a few errors in the menu. Items necessary for a meal were left off the shopping list, and extra items were on it. I e-mailed the author asking for an updated version, and she said she was afraid she might mess something up if she tried to correct the problem. We e-mailed back and forth a few times and the problem was never solved. I promptly cancelled my subscription. I have 3 months (12 weeks) of menus I just won't use.
If the recipes were tasty and healthy, I could look past the menu format and maybe even the poor customer service. I definitely wouldn't recommend Make 5 Dinners in One Hour. They might be ok if you're seriously strapped for cash as there are almost no fresh fruits or veggies which keeps the cost down, or if you're very strapped for time. The kitchen was clean in under 2 hours. I still think I'd find alternatives in those situations, though. The menus are delivered in PDF format to your e-mail, so you can save them to your computer and in your e-mail. They aren't posted on a website.
From this, I'll take a few ideas. Chopping and preparing marinades in advance does save a lot of time on busy nights and creates less mess.
Cost: $5 a month, billed $15 every 3 months.
The idea behind this menu mailer is simple and practical. You spend one hour each week preparing meals. Meals are then stored in the refrigerator and cooked throughout the week. Each week contains at least one meal that can be frozen.
I was very enticed by the idea of spending just one hour in the kitchen each week making dinners. Think about how easy clean up would be!
When I received the actual menus though, I was highly disappointed. First and most importantly, the recipes were lacking. Almost every week contained one sandwich recipe. The most disappointing was the ham and swiss cups recipe (which, coincidentally was reposted on her blog just yesterday). Take some bread, tear it up, shove it in a muffin tin, put some ham on top, and then put a slice of processed cheese on top of that. Am I really paying for this service? The other recipes consist of casseroles and cream of something soups. Most weeks called for very few fresh vegetables, and there was only one recipe in the two weeks I used them that we actually liked. The directions are sometimes unclear, and often very simplistic (cook according to package directions).
While it seems like there could be a lot of flexibility in this menu system, there really isn't. You have to think carefully about the recipes you'll eat at the end of the week. Planning ahead will be crucial to ensuring that you end up with edible meals by day 5.
The format leaves something to be desired also. The fonts change from box to box, the grocery list isn't on its own page for easy printing, and there are no graphics or pictures. The very first month of my subscription, there were a few errors in the menu. Items necessary for a meal were left off the shopping list, and extra items were on it. I e-mailed the author asking for an updated version, and she said she was afraid she might mess something up if she tried to correct the problem. We e-mailed back and forth a few times and the problem was never solved. I promptly cancelled my subscription. I have 3 months (12 weeks) of menus I just won't use.
If the recipes were tasty and healthy, I could look past the menu format and maybe even the poor customer service. I definitely wouldn't recommend Make 5 Dinners in One Hour. They might be ok if you're seriously strapped for cash as there are almost no fresh fruits or veggies which keeps the cost down, or if you're very strapped for time. The kitchen was clean in under 2 hours. I still think I'd find alternatives in those situations, though. The menus are delivered in PDF format to your e-mail, so you can save them to your computer and in your e-mail. They aren't posted on a website.
From this, I'll take a few ideas. Chopping and preparing marinades in advance does save a lot of time on busy nights and creates less mess.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Menu Planning Resources and Reviews
When I got married almost 6 years ago, I had no idea how to cook. I had a few basic skills, but I had very little understanding of what actually went in to cooking for a family every day. Here's what dinner looked like at our house: I would wait until the Sailor got home from work and ask, "What do you want for dinner?". The answer was almost always, "I don't know". We'd sit down at the computer, peruse recipes, make a shopping list, go to the grocery store, come home, and start dinner - every day! We were either eating dinner at 8:30 every night or going out. Going to the grocery store 5 times a week is almost as expensive as eating out!
Enter Saving Dinner. Through a forum, I found out about a menu mailer subscription that sent out a menu plan, recipes, and a shopping list every week. It was perfect! Saving Dinner taught me how to cook and the Sailor affectionately referred to it as my "wife lessons". Soon after, I branched out to their freezer menus. I was enticed by a few other systems and I've tried most of the major menu planning sites online. I've had a lot of people ask about them, so I'm going to start a series reviewing the ones I've tried.
Stay tuned for menu mailer reviews on:
-Saving Dinner
-The Six O'Clock Scramble
-E-Mealz
-The Fresh 20
-The Once A Week Cooking Club
-5 Dinners 1 Hour
and non-menu mailer mealtime solutions:
-Stonesoup Virtual Cookery School
-Pocket Full of Posies
Enter Saving Dinner. Through a forum, I found out about a menu mailer subscription that sent out a menu plan, recipes, and a shopping list every week. It was perfect! Saving Dinner taught me how to cook and the Sailor affectionately referred to it as my "wife lessons". Soon after, I branched out to their freezer menus. I was enticed by a few other systems and I've tried most of the major menu planning sites online. I've had a lot of people ask about them, so I'm going to start a series reviewing the ones I've tried.
Stay tuned for menu mailer reviews on:
-Saving Dinner
-The Six O'Clock Scramble
-E-Mealz
-The Fresh 20
-The Once A Week Cooking Club
-5 Dinners 1 Hour
and non-menu mailer mealtime solutions:
-Stonesoup Virtual Cookery School
-Pocket Full of Posies
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