Family Meals Made Easy

In theory, meal plans sound like a great idea for busy families. Plan out your meals for the week in advance, buy all the ingredients in one trip to the grocery store, and it’s smooth sailing, right? Only I’ve never quite been able to get the hang of it. Inevitably, I end up staring into the pantry at 5pm, night after night, a few ingredients shy of whatever dish I’m trying to make. Add in 2 picky, impatient kids, 1 vegetarian, 1 low-carbotarian, and it’s a recipe for failure.

So when a woman I met at Blissdom contacted me about trying out E-Mealz, a site that lets you customize a meal plan for your family, including vegetarian, low-carb, and meals based on sales at your local grocery store, I said “Heck, yeah, sign me up!”

Here’s how it works: you pay $1.25 a week for the service, or $15 for 3 mos. (No, seriously. That’s really how little it costs. I waste 5 times that much each week buying random ingredients I never end up using. Like mushrooms. And weird cheeses.) You can choose plans for 2 or 4-6 people, for a specific store (Walmart or Kroger, for example) or any store. I did the vegetarian 7-day family meal plan for any store.

So you log on to the site and pull up the weekly menu. (See sample menus here.) You also have access to the previous week’s menu if you want. Then you print out the recipes, along with a grocery list, which lists the ingredients you need, listed by aisle. The grocery list ALONE was worth it for me. No more losing scraps of paper on which I’d scribbled “2 bell peppers, froz. spinach, eggs.”

The pros of E-Mealz: how easy it was, how you only buy what you need, and how there are so many options. The cons: how much food the plan produced. I soon realized I couldn’t keep up – with the cooking or the leftovers. On a good week, I manage to cook dinner maybe 4 to 5 times, tops. Then I peter out and it’s takeout and Trader Joe’s frozen entrees. But it’s also because we don’t eat that much food. I soon began off-loading the leftovers to my neighbor. (She didn’t complain.)

The meal plan also highlighted how picky my family is. Unfortunately, there were lots of recipes I had to rule out right off the bat because I knew they’d never fly in my house. Like Walnut Cheddar Loaf. Not happening. But I did try a few new things like Quinoa- and Vegetable-Stuffed Peppers (good, but lots of chopping) and Greek Eggplant (easy and tasty!)

The bottom line: I think E-Mealz is a great idea and the price makes it a no-brainer. It could actually save you money if you’re prone to wasting food like us. For a family that eats pretty much the same thing every night, I say give it a try. For us? Until the kids get a little less picky, I’m better off cobbling together our own meal plan based on the limited recipes my whole family likes. But I sure will miss those print-out grocery lists.

DEAL O’ THE WEEK: E-Mealz is offering 15% off for new subscribers. Sign up here and use the code BLISS at checkout. (Note: this is an affiliate link.)

RECIPE O’ THE WEEK: Believe it or not, this Linguine with Shrimp Scampi was a crowd-pleaser in our house. I left out the hot pepper flakes for the kids.

Healthy Eating? Oprah’s Got Nothing on Us

Remember my plan to cook more creative, healthy meals this year? And what a flop the tofu nuggets were? Well, I didn’t let that faze me, people. I’m forging ahead. OK, so I’ve slacked off a little. What mere mortal mom could keep that up 7 days a week? (Or even 5.) But we’ve had some culinary hits in our house.

The zucchini bread, for instance: huge hit. As was the coconut banana bread. Even when I sneaked in wheat germ and flaxseed. But baked goods aren’t much of a challenge, are they? A far more satisfactory success was getting my 4yo to eat tilapia. I’m not kidding; he loved it. Scarfed it down. Asked for more. And last night my veggie-phobic toddler devoured some vegetable lasagna. I was so proud.

But this -- THIS made my heart swell: Miles’ friend C. came over one afternoon and asked if he could stay for dinner. Now, this kid’s poor mom has been known to make 3 separate entrees for her 3 children. So I said, “Sure! We’re having chickpea coconut curry over rice. If you’ll eat that, you can stay for dinner.”

C. looked skeptical. “What does it look like?” he asked warily.

I dished up a tiny serving and showed it to him. “That looks pretty good,” he said.

“Oh, it IS,” I assured him, hoping I wasn’t overselling it.

So I sat the kids down at the table and C. took a bite. “Mmm, I like this,” he said, sounding as surprised as I felt. “Will you tell my mom I tried something new?”

“I sure will. What a good eater you are, C!”

Not to be outdone, Miles chimed in, “I think it looks good, too, Mom.” Now, I can assure you that if it was just us, he would have a MUCH different reaction to his dinner. For once, peer pressure was working in my favor.

Meanwhile in his highchair, Riley was shouting, “CHICK-pea! CHICK-pea!” and popping them into his mouth one by one. I didn’t even care that he was picking around the tomatoes and scattering the rice all over the floor.

So what if dinner lasted only 7 minutes? So what if half an hour later the kids were begging for snacks? So what if they reject this exact same meal next week? At least it’s a start, right?

LINK O’ THE WEEK: Oprah did a show about her staff’s one-week vegan challenge. Did you see it? It was eye-opening in so many ways. There was a fast-food-addicted woman who said before this, she only pooped once a WEEK!!

Of course, the employee cafeteria was cooking up all sorts of delicious vegan meals for the staff, so that’s not much of a challenge. Come over and cook for me and I’ll eat as healthy as you want!

My favorite part was when the vegan expert took a lady shopping at Whole Foods and loaded her up with all this fancy health food -– never once mentioning that the contents of her shopping cart cost a FORTUNE! People call it “Whole Paycheck” for a reason, you know.

Culinary Goddess...for a Week

The tofu nuggets were a mistake. I see that now. Even when C. dubbed them “tuggets” in an attempt to jazz them up, the kids weren’t buying it. They remained unmoved by the breaded, gelatinous cubes of soybean curd on their plates. Oh, well. Can’t blame a mom for trying, right?

As a New Year’s resolution of sorts, I have decided to step up my game in the kitchen this year. Our meals had gotten so pathetic they barely qualified as meals. Plain pasta and peas. Mac & cheese with broccoli. Slices of turkey, cheese, and apple, naked on a plate, not even combined into a sandwich. I told myself it was because the kids were so picky and my husband was rarely home for dinner, so it didn’t matter. But the truth is, this food wasn’t appetizing to anybody.

So I decided to get more creative, a little healthier and more well-rounded, and actually – gasp! – PLAN some meals in advance. I don’t know why, but meal planning has always seemed like such a chore. Of course, the alternative is that I consistently end up 1 or 2 ingredients shy of a recipe I want to try and resort back to pasta.

Here’s the thing, though: in my house, meal-planning is extra tricky. That’s because a) I’m a vegetarian, b) my husband is currently on a meat-heavy, anti-carb diet, and c) I have 2 extremely finicky children. I’d like to point out that even as a vegetarian, I’m usually the least picky one in the group. It’s true. I’ll eat whatever’s on the menu, just hold the cow.

I’m not gonna lie; cooking has been a challenge so far. And there have been some surprises along the way. For instance, the first meal I made was chipotle shrimp tacos. (I do eat seafood now and then.) To my surprise, both my 4yo and my 22mo gobbled them up. So, let me get this straight. My preschooler will not eat cucumber, but he WILL eat shellfish? And my toddler will turn up his nose at avocado, but finds CHIPOTLES pleasing to his palate? And both of them will eat olives, but not baby carrots. Go figure.

The next meal was a vegetable lo mein. It took some threatening coaxing, but the boys did eat a few bites. C. and I thought it was pretty tasty, although he did balk at the carbs in the noodles. The next night I made the ill-fated “tuggets.” Even I had to admit they were less than delicious. It feels like blasphemy for a vegetarian to admit she doesn’t like tofu, but there you have it. C.’s side dish of garlic-sauteed broccoli was much better received.

Another winner was my veggie Crockpot chili, which the kids scarfed down when heaped liberally with cheese and tortilla chips on top. Personally, I thought the linguini with tapenade, artichokes, tomato, and feta was fabulous. But apparently, even though both my boys will eat whole olives, they will NOT eat them when they’re chopped up. (UGHH!! These kids are killing me!)

Tuna & rice casserole: flop. Anchormommy’s crustless spinach and tomato quiche: hit. (And the ONLY way I can get Riley to eat spinach.) Zucchini bread (while technically not a meal): hit.

Miles and I also whipped up some homemade playdough, which – while not edible – still qualifies me as a culinary goddess. Shut up. IT DOES. I also made Jello, which my mother-in-law introduced to the boys over Christmas. What are you gonna do? Sometimes you have to play to the crowd.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty impressed with myself. I’ll be honest: getting my family to eat a healthy homemade meal is almost as thrilling as seeing my byline in a national magazine. Of course, I realize it’s only been a week or so. I better pace myself.

So tell me: have you found any crowd-pleasing meals in your house?

The Falafel Debacle

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I made falafel? No? Well, that’s probably because it was AWFUL. I had this idea that because both my kids like chickpeas I should kick it up a notch and make something fancier than our usual dinner fare (e.g. spaghetti and peas). Plus, I have golden memories of this amazing falafel I had in Montreal one summer when I was studying French there in college. It was legendary, people.

My falafel? Was nothing like that. I knew I’d gotten off to a bad start when the recipe said to use a food processor and, since we don’t own one, I decided to use a blender. Only the bottom third of the chickpea mixture was mixing, so I tried to shove it down with a rubber spatula. When that got chewed up, I picked out the pieces of plastic and tried a wooden spoon. When a chunk of that splintered off, I thought about giving up, but instead I transferred the whole mess in two batches to the Magic Bullet.

Then, it turned out we didn’t have enough vegetable oil to deep-fry the falafel patties so I added some olive oil to the pan, thinking I’d sauté them instead. Healthier, right? So here’s what happened: the falafel dissolved in the oil and I ended up with a pan full of chickpea sludge. Did I mention that I had invited our neighbors over for dinner and there were 5 hungry kids running around my house at that point?

I managed to salvage a few paltry falafel patties, which were gritty and too salty and contained shards of wooden spoon. My neighbor, ever the good sport, pronounced them “not that bad.” The girl is a terrible liar. But polite. Needless to say, the kids wouldn’t touch the stuff and ate chicken nuggets instead. And THAT is why I don’t cook much, people.

Someone who does is Matthew Amster-Burton, author of Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater. A food writer and dad in Seattle, he writes about his culinary adventures with his very funny and precocious daughter, Iris. The child was eating sushi at 10 mos. She once did a podcast about lobster. And her favorite food is some Szechuan dish with pork that her dad grinds himself. For real.

I loved this book, even though I am SO not the intended audience. For one thing, I’m a vegetarian. For another, my favorite cookbook is one he openly disparages (Desperation Dinners). And for another, I hate grocery shopping and only do it because I have to, whereas Amster-Burton goes food shopping at farmers’ markets and specialty grocery stores up to 8 times a week (!!).

But I’m a sucker for a good read, especially one about a devoted stay-at-home dad and his hilarious 3 y.o. I know ALL about hilarious 3 y.o.’s. Mine is a pretty good eater, but there’s no WAY he’d ever eat a fish eyeball like Iris does.

The book is very funny and includes recipes, 99% of which I will never make. With the possible exception of the Pad Thai. I laughed out loud at the chapter about his stint as preschool “Snack Dad.” He makes empanadas and Chinese dumplings for the class -- from scratch. I would HATE this guy if I were another parent at his school. As a point of comparison, I brought in prepackaged popcorn when it was my turn to do snack.

My poor children will never know what it’s like to grind their own spices, buy shrimp straight off the boat, or make sticky rice at home. Oh, well. Maybe when they’re in college they can study abroad one semester and get a taste of what good food is like.

READ O’ THE WEEK: Amster-Burton’s book includes a “recommended reading” section at the end, complete with food-related kids’ books. One of our favorites is Jamberry by Bruce Degen, a rollicking, rhyming fruit adventure. Mmmm, jam...

Health Tips from a Complete Non-Expert

As January winds down, I keep encountering people who have resolved to live healthier this year. Exercise more, eat better, slow down, the usual. To those folks I say, good for you! But do you have to take up ALL the parking spots at the gym? Some of us have boatloads of kids and diaper bags to carry, you know!

And also? I hope I’m not standing behind you in line at Panera when you special-order your lunch and ask for everything on the side. Just GET THE SALAD!! If you really want to save calories, you shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Sorry, went off on a tangent there. What I meant to say was, I would like to share some healthy living tips with you all. I am by no means a health expert or a model of fitness -- “Why run when you can sit on the recumbent bike and read People?” is my motto -- but I have been a vegetarian for a couple of decades and I’ve never been on “The Biggest Loser.” That qualifies me in some small way, right?

Just to be clear: I am not a medical professional, just a mom who forces her kids to eat vegetables and go to the gym with her. Got it?

Take the “ex” out of “exercise.” What do you think of when you hear the word “exercise”? Extreme workouts? Sweat, pain, discomfort? Then find something you don’t hate. I can ride a bike 10x longer than I can run, for example, simply because I enjoy it more. And I do yoga because it’s relaxing and I feel taller and looser afterwards. Whereas body pump (weightlifting) classes just make me sore. It doesn’t have to be uncomfortable to count as exercise.

Sneak it in. Forget Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook. (Unless you’re craving this.) There are MUCH easier ways to sneak healthy stuff into your kids’ food. I mix carrots into any baby food my 11 m.o. turns up his nose at. (Like green beans.) I sprinkle wheat germ on my 3-y.o.’s yogurt and call it “crunchies.” I mix flaxseed into pancakes and muffins, and have been known to add pureed spinach to spaghetti sauce.

We try to buy unsweetened everything (yogurt, oatmeal), and add our own dab of sugar, honey, or jam to it. We also buy wholegrain everything—bread, pasta, tortillas, cereal. There’s no excuse to buy white bread. EVER. If you must, use Rachael Ray’s trick of making a sandwich with the wheat bread on the bottom and the white bread on top. Sneaky, huh?

Go veggie. Vegetarian fare has come a long way since tofu and soymilk. At any Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and ordinary neighborhood supermarket you can find a huge variety of frozen veggie entrees. My favorite product is Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles. Substitute them for ground beef in tacos, chili, spaghetti sauce, and countless other recipes. The soy chicken, on the other hand? You can skip. (Except the nuggets. They’re not bad.) And remember: anything meat can do, beans can do better.


Swap out the coffee. You know those too-much-coffee jitters? I’ve started switching to green tea after one cup of coffee in the morning. If you think it tastes like boiled vegetables, try Lipton Green Tea with orange, passionfruit, and jasmine with a squirt of honey. Yum! It gives me enough of a pick-me-up to get through the day but won’t keep me awake past “The Daily Show.”

Make it a habit. You wouldn’t skip brushing your teeth for a day, would you? Or washing your face? OK, well, definitely not for 2 days straight, right? Because you’re in the habit. And you’d start to feel gross. And your friends would avoid you.

Well, it’s the same with exercise and eating healthy. Start by just showing up at the gym, or going for a walk, or eating a fruit or vegetable with each meal. Before you know it you’ll be running 10k’s and downing shots of wheat grass. Or not.

Look, I can and sometimes do eat a bag of BBQ potato chips for dinner, but I pair them with a side of carrot sticks and ranch dressing. It’s all about balance, people. Good luck with those resolutions! Save me a Stairmaster, would you?

TIP O’ THE WEEK: I never could get into V8. These Apple & Eve fruit & veggie juice boxes are MUCH tastier. I steal them from my son all the time.

Baby Food Blues

Imagine how much easier it would be to raise kids if you didn’t have to feed them?

You could blissfully go about your day without having to puree anything or push green beans on anyone. You wouldn’t have to water down juice, cut off crusts, or pick the raisins out of raisin bread. You wouldn’t have strenuous negotiations about how many bites of chicken equals half an hour of Spongebob, and you wouldn’t have to hose down your kitchen floor 3 times a day. I know -- crazy talk!

I was reminded how labor-intensive the feeding of small children can be when my 7 m.o. son, Riley, started solid food recently. Unlike for my 3 y.o., Miles, I couldn’t just throw a toaster waffle and a whole banana on a plate and call it breakfast. I had to mix the oatmeal, blend in the peaches, heat it to just the right temperature, and then sit there shoveling it into his mouth for 20 min., not to mention the considerable cleanup afterward. Our morning routine doesn’t allow for that kind of time, people!

I remember before I had a baby thinking that people who made their own baby food were nuts. Isn’t that what Gerber is for? Then when Miles was tiny, I realized that pureeing a sweet potato wasn’t that hard, not to mention way cheaper. Then I got a little TOO ambitious. There was the steamed carrot explosion and later, the broccoli-cheese muffin debacle. (Tip: Just because your child likes blueberry muffins does NOT mean he will fall for muffins containing stinky green vegetables.)

This time around, I still microwave the occasional sweet potato but don’t have time for much more. And that’s a shame, because I’ve decided to do only organic baby food and that stuff’s EXPENSIVE!! Almost $1/jar for watered-down applesauce?! BTW, why doesn’t Trader Joe’s come out with their own line of baby food?

Anyway, there have definitely been some culinary hits and misses in our house when it comes to feeding our children. My husband earned a permanent spot in our family lore with his signature Kung Fu Panda maneuver. Miles was refusing to eat something or other until C. served it “Kung Fu Panda style.” Meaning, he held out a bite of food with chopsticks and Miles took a flying kung-fu leap and ate it in mid-air. My mom was visiting at the time, and this episode pretty much cemented C.’s title as Super Dad in her eyes.

C. has a far higher success rate with getting Miles to eat than I do. His creations include veggie burger “sliders” – mini burgers w/ all the fixings – and BBQ chicken wraps. “It’s all in the presentation,” he says smugly, as I try to foist forkfuls of shepherd’s pie into my picky eater’s face. But except for occasionally using a star-shaped cookie cutter on his PB&J’s, I can’t be bothered.

After all, I’ve got another kid to feed now. When I remember, that is. Fortunately, Riley’s still getting most of his calories from breastmilk because otherwise, he might wither away. On more than one occasion, I’ve packed a picnic lunch for the playground only to realize, oops! I brought nothing for the baby. And it’s not like I can give him a bite of his brother’s cheese stick.

Just today, we forgot Riley’s breakfast in the morning rush. Sorry, buddy! (Don’t worry, he’ll more than make up for it during those 2 nighttime feedings he’s STILL insisting on!) And since he refused to try Indian food, Miles’ dinner consisted of blueberry yogurt and half an apple. Oh, well. They say what a kid eats over the course of a week is more important than what he eats (or doesn’t eat) in one day.

So, anyone interested in 2 dozen broccoli-cheese mini muffins? Anyone??

LINK O’ THE WEEK: My SIL tipped me off to this web site, Weelicious.com, for fast, healthy, kid-friendly food.

READS O’ THE WEEK: My last post sparked some intense debate as well as some spin-off posts, which I’ll be the first to admit are perhaps, ahem, more thoughtful and diplomatic than mine was: “Mommy on the Sidelines” on It’s Not Like a Cat… and “A Plea to Spouses” on So Much to Say, So Little Time. I feel blessed to have such positive, constructive, interactive readers.

Domestic Goddess by Default

I have never been an enthusiastic practitioner of the domestic arts -- cooking, cleaning, sewing, gardening, crocheting, what have you. I mean, I CAN whip up some tasty peanut noodles. I DO clean my kitchen (too often for my liking, yet still not often enough). I HAVE managed to keep a few houseplants alive. I even sewed a quilt for my unborn child. (Hey, I had to pass the time somehow during my 41+ week pregnancy!) But I wouldn’t say I particularly enjoy these activities.

I know people who love to cook. Look at Rachael Ray. The woman cooks for a living, and still claims she goes home and makes dinner every night. My question is: why?? Same goes for people who make their own clothes. I can appreciate a hand-sewn quilt, but why would you spent all that time making a dress when you could just go out and buy one? Gardening I sort of understand -– at least you can admire and maybe even eat the fruits of your labor -– but it’s still one of the least-appealing activities I can think of. Just the THOUGHT of dirt under my nails makes me cringe. And to me, mulch smells like vomit.

OK, so Holly Homemaker I’m not. Unfortunately for me, none of my hobbies (if you can even call them that) lend themselves to raising a child. Traveling, reading, going to concerts, eating out, exercising, even writing is not easy with a baby in tow. Early on, I was frustrated that motherhood curtailed so many of my favorite pastimes: the beach was too bright for a baby, his neck was too floppy for a bike seat, kayaking was too dangerous, and whenever he was sleeping, I was too tired to read.

Now that Miles is a toddler, he’s more adaptable. Still, we spend a lot of time housebound. Naps are sacred, he goes to bed early, and he prefers to stay home and play with his toys a lot of the time. So, I have been forced to find things to do around the house – like cooking, cleaning, and even (yikes!) gardening. It’s true. Miles and I spent a nice afternoon planting window boxes. Well, I planted while he dug in the dirt for worms and emptied the watering can on his shoes.

My mom, a skilled sewer and bread baker, revealed that she took up baking after she had a baby. It was a quiet, time-consuming activity she could do while he napped. Plus, it made the house smell nice and everyone got to enjoy the finished product. I learned to knit when I was pregnant, because I could do something productive and chat or watch TV at the same time. (Sadly, I ditched that hobby the minute I finished my first, and only, scarf.)

I have friends who are avid scrapbookers. (Or "scrappers," per the lingo.) That, I can get on board with. At least it’s an attractive way to deal with all those shoeboxes and/or hard drives full of photos. Other moms I know refinish furniture and make their own stationery. All productive activities you can do while keeping an eye on a baby. And that don’t take too much brain power. And that can be easily interrupted should you need to nurse, change a diaper, or rescue your toddler when he’s wedged his head between the slats of a kitchen chair. (Not that that’s ever happened to me. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course it has!)

I have not embraced my inner Martha. I do not aspire to win any bake-offs. I will never make a pair of overalls for my child or decoupage a lamp. (Actually, I don’t even know what that means.) I might, however, keep my window boxes alive this year. Fingers crossed.

LAUGH O’ THE WEEK: We were at the pool and another boy had a squirt gun. Miles asked me what it was. I paused, reluctant to introduce the concept of firearms. “What do you think it is?” I asked him. “A hairdryer!” he shouted. Sure. Let’s go with that.