EMeals

If you are a Dave Ramsey fan you may have heard of eMeals before.

It is a national web based meal planning platform.

We are all about the meal planning at The Little Pink House; it just makes life easier as well as saves us money.  If you need one sure-fire way to save money in 2013 it is to meal plan.

A couple of our friends recently found a Groupon for a web based meal planning service and are trying it out.  They have found that they eat more variety, are not worried about what to make for dinner, they have less waste, and it costs them less.

Less stress and costs less.  Perfect.

Not only do you have access to the plan but they give you a shopping list and even a day by day play by play on what staples to make sure you have on hand.  Very convenient.

Here's something else that's pretty cool, they have multiple diet/cooking level plans to choose from.  I chose the Clean Eating Plan; it has no processed foods.

Here's where I need to get over myself, I love cookbooks.  I like thumbing through and finding new dishes to try.  EMeals does all the thumbing through for me which does save on time but will make my cookbooks feel awful lonely.

These are 7-day plans so there is no break for leftovers (that kind of puts a kink in my Saturday night leftover buffet plans.)  So what I have done is to split their weekly plan up into 2 weeks so I have room for leftovers and Date Night - two very important weekly events.  ;)

Pros:

• Interesting food
• Takes thought out of "what's for dinner?"
• Menus can be saved to your computer to be used again

Cons:

• Time consuming
• Prep not laid out well
• Makes lots of assumptions on your cooking level

I'm a fiddler so many of the recipes I have changed to suit what I had on hand or what I thought might make it more interesting.  This is one of those recipes.  It was wonderful...a little time consuming, but not difficult.

Moroccan Tagine w/Easy Tabbouleh

(adapted from eMeals and fiddled with by me) 

8 Chicken Thighs

3 Cloves of Garlic, minced

1 1/2 tsp. Cumin

1 tsp. Ginger

1 1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Black Pepper

1/2 tsp. Turmeric

1/2 tsp. Hot Paprika

1/4 tsp. Cinnamon

1/8 of a Preserved Lemon, minced or mushed into paste

Olive Oil

1c. Chopped Olives*

10 Dried Dates, Chopped

1/2c. Water

2c. Bulghur Wheat

4c. Boiling Water

1 Tbs. Refrigerated Vegetable or Chicken Bouillon

1 c. Prepared Pico de Gallo

Put chicken, garlic, cumin, ginger, salt, pepper, turmeric  paprika, and cinnamon in a ziptop bag.  Seal it up and give the bag a good squishin'.

Leave in the fridge to marinate at least two hours.

Heat a couple of Tbs. of oil in a Dutch Oven and sear chicken for a couple of minutes on each side.  Once that's done, put all of the chicken back in the Dutch Oven, skin side down, cover, and cook at 350F for 20 minutes.

While that's cooking, mix the water, bouillon, and bulghur together in a bowl and flip a plate upside down over the top of it to trap the steam.  Set aside.

Mix the olives, dates, and preserved lemons together and set aside.

When the 20 minutes is up, flip the thighs to skin side up and sprinkle the olive mixture over.  Add 1/2c. water to bottom of pan. Cover and cook and further 20 minutes.

Uncover and fluff the bulgher with a fork and mix in the pico.  Enjoy!

This is part of Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday.

*I used a mixture of green and black olives that were marinated.  I would be leery of trying the cocktail olives out of a can, I think it won't give the right taste or texture.  If in doubt, use kalamata olives or omit them altogether.

I was given the opportunity to try out eMeals through US Family Bloggers.  All opinions are my own.  This post may contain affiliate links.