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Have you heard of Green Chef? It's an organic meal kit delivery service with pre-measured and mostly prepped ingredients. You select your dietary and delivery preferences.
You can choose from:
2-Person Plan (3 dinners a week for 2 people) • Omnivore: Crave variety? This diverse, flexible menu has meat, seafood, and vegetarian dinners. • Carnivore: Meat and seafood lovers, dig in. Every dinner includes a land or sea protein plus veggies. • Gluten-Free: Always gluten-free and flavor-full, with meat, seafood, and vegetarian dinners. • Vegetarian: More than just salads, every dinner makes veggies the star in unique, delicious ways. • Paleo: Eat like an epicurean caveman. This paleo menu is rich in fresh produce and proteins. • Vegan: Plant-based just got better. An innovative menu with natural, specialty ingredients. • Family Plan (2 dinners a week for a family of 4) • Omnivore or Carnivore
We chose the carnivore family plan (2 dinners a week for a family of 4). Watch our unboxing video to see what it is like to get Green Chef delivered to your door.
We were sent all of the ingredients with the recipe cards to make lemon-chive salmon with dill-roasted red potatoes and mixed green salad and Italian meatballs and orzo. The ingredients are color coded to match the recipe card they coordinate with. (I didn't realize this until writing this post, but it sure does make it easy.)
Both meals were fantastic and we were able to make them in under 40 minutes. Our absolute favorite meal was the lemon-chive salmon (pictured above) It was incredible! The potatoes were perfectly cooked and seasoned, the salad was delicious plus it was fun using ingredients we don't normally use, and the salmon was so tender and flavorful. Luckily our kids ate dinner at church the night we made this because we finished it all ourselves. This meal is amazing and I would order it again, but not to feed a family of four. I think it is best proportioned to feed two to three people.
The second meal we tried was the Italian meatballs and orzo made with cremini mushrooms, lacinato kale, tomato sauce, and fresh herbs. This meal was really good too and expanded our horizons a bit. I have never cooked with kale and was hesitant to do so, but did so that I could follow the recipe exactly and share this experience with you honestly. To our surprise we didn't notice any strong flavors from the kale. It blended in nicely with the recipe which was quite tasty. I thought this recipe was a little more involved than the salmon, but was still fairly quick to prepare. It took right around 40 minutes. The meatballs were even better the next day as leftovers and did make enough to feed a family of four.
Green Chef meal kit delivery service is an easy way to simplify making healthy meals at home. Recipes and all of the ingredients are sent directly to your door. I love trying new things so making recipes I have never made before was a lot of fun. My husband helped make the meatballs and we enjoyed our time cooking together. One of my favorite things about the meal kits is all of the fresh produce and herbs. I don't usually cook with fresh herbs, but feel inspired to use them more often. I just planted some basil and it is already about two inches high. If you want an easy way to eat healthier and expand your culinary horizons, give Green Chef a try.
New customers save $50 off your first box through my link at Green Chef.
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Mornings can be busy, rushed, or even CRAZY at times and while I am far from perfect, I have found that if I take care of a few simple tasks at night, our mornings run so much smoother. 1. Evaluate which tasks eat up your morning time and could be done the night before to help your morning run more smoothly. I like to take a relaxing bath every other day, but this really cut into my morning time and I found myself rushing out the door. I started giving myself half an hour at night to relax in the tub and I love it. No rushing in the morning, kids are in bed and I have much needed alone time. Maybe you spend lots of time in the morning picking out an outfit. Do this the night before and you won't even have to think about it in the morning. My husband picks out his work clothes and lays them out the night before and it is one less thing he has to do in the morning. 2. Clean the kitchen every night. I have been doing this for years so it is a habit for me. I love coming in to a clean kitchen every morning. It is easy to start breakfast and the kids can sit right down at the table. 3. Rotate the laundry and fold a load each night. This may not pertain to you, but I have to do about 2 loads a day to keep up with our laundry so I make sure to fold a load each night and then I put it away the next day. It is easy to watch a favorite show after the kids have gone to bed and fold a load of laundry. Actually, it's kind of relaxing and I get to catch up on my favorite shows. My current favorite is Call the Midwife. Fair warning, keep a box of tissues handy. I watched season 5 episode 2 the other day and the tears gushed. I suppose clean laundry is always good for wiping away tears too. 4. Get ideas for lunches and breakfast the night before. My boys have been eating school lunches lately, but when I pack lunches, it can take some time out of my morning so any preparation I can do at night, I do ahead. Every night during the school year I make sure icepacks go in the freezer then I pack non-perishable foods in the boys' lunch boxes. Anything that I can make ahead and pre-package I put in the fridge the night before. Then all I have to do in the morning is add an ice pack and fresh food (sandwich, fruit, etc.) Our breakfast are pretty simple, usually cereal, fruit, cheese, toast, etc., but I try to get an idea the night before and if we are low on our usual supplies I'll make a loaf of bread, some muffins or boil some eggs so that I am prepared for the morning. Last summer, I took Crystal Paine's (Money Saving Mom) Make Over Your Mornings online course and I loved it. Read my testimonial on the Make Over Your Mornings site. I am so excited to announce that Crystal has created a new course Make Over Your Evenings which is available starting today, April 21st at midnight Eastern time. So, the 14 day course which only takes 15 minutes a day and includes all the videos, the workbook, and the projects — will regularly retail for just $17. Here are The Crazy-Can’t-Miss-Low-Low-Low Launch Sale Prices: 12 a.m. to 7 a.m. ET on April 21, 2016 – just $5!!! 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET – just $7! 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET – only $10! 5 p.m. – 12 a.m. ET – only $13!
If you have paid any attention to the news, you have probably heard that egg prices are expected to go up in the near future due to the avian flu outbreak that has been spreading through the US and really hitting the midwest. Reports are in that 44 million chickens and other birds have already been culled.
This is starting to impact food companies who buy wholesale "breaker" eggs and whole eggs which could raise prices on anything from mayonnaise to baked goods. I read that some restaurants have even cut the hours they serve breakfast because of the higher egg prices. I expect prices for whole eggs to increase at the retail level too. Eggs are a big part of our diet, but they have been so inexpensive that they haven't taken a very big chunk of our grocery budget. With the news of prices going up in the near future, I decided to take advantage of the current low prices and stock up and freeze eggs for future use. I stopped in ALDI today and was pleased to see that eggs are still just $0.28 a dozen. You read that correctly, $0.28 a dozen!!! There is a limit of 6 dozen, so I bought 6.
What can consumers do to offset the increasing costs of eggs?
I hope egg prices don't sky rocket in the near future, but if they do, I'll be prepared (at least for a short term price hike). Have you seen increases yet?
Linking up at Friendship Friday, Share the Wealth
If you have never shopped at ALDI, you should give it a try. There are a couple of things you should know before you go. Bring a quarter to rent your cart and bring your own bags. They do have bags for sale, but it is so easy to bring your own. So you may be thinking...Ugh, I don't want to bag my own groceries. They have bagging counters and it only takes a few minutes, but saves you money on your groceries because it keeps costs down. ALDI does not take credit cards, but they take debit cards, EBT and of course they take cash. I always pay with cash. This is another way they keep costs down by not paying credit card fees.
Now that you are through ALDI 101, let's talk savings. I compare prices everywhere I shop and most of the time ALDI prices can't be beat. They carry mostly their own store brands, so you won't be using manufacturers coupons. I have shopped ALDI for years and have found most of their products comparable to national brands. I love their produce as you can see in the picture above. Admittedly, I don't buy much meat at the grocery store because I buy meat at our local University meat lab and my parents give us a lot of deer meat. But when I have bought meat at ALDI, I thought it was good quality. I will sometimes stock up on marked down meat at ALDI and freeze it. To show you how good their prices are, here is a breakdown of this week's ALDI shopping trip. All of this for only $36! Bananas, 1.96 lb. X $0.40 lb. = $0.78 Fresh green beans = $1.39 Old fashioned oats = $2.29 Butter, 1 lb. = $1.79 24 bottles purified water (not pictured) = $2.29 Bag organic popped popcorn = $1.79 Avocados 7 X $0.49 = $3.43 Artisan lettuce = $1.29 Mini Sweet Peppers = $1.99 Crisp rice cereal = $1.79 Eggs = $0.59 Diced tomatoes 2 X $0.55 = $1.10 3 lb. bag red delicious apples = $2.69 Canned green beans 2 X $0.34 = $0.68 Kiwi 6 pack = $1.69 Gallon milk = $1.49 Hard salami 1/2 lb. = $2.99 Cucumber = $0.29 6 pack raisin boxes = $1.29 2 lb. Sweet onions = $2.29 1 lb. Roma tomatoes = $0.99 White chocolate covered pretzels marked down to $0.99 Subtotal =$35.91 Tax = $0.36 Total = $36.27
Linking up at Friendship Friday
Last weekend I went to a nice thrift store with my sister-in-law. I was so excited to find a "new" bread machine for only $6.99. If you have been following me for very long, you know that I sadly parted with my hand-me-down bread machine last summer when it quit working. I was more than sad, I was kind of crushed. I used my old bread machine once or twice a week making my favorite bread machine recipes. I wasn't sure if my new to me bread machine would even work, but I thought it was worth risking $6.99 for the possibility of making fresh baked goodies with ease once again. I put it to the test the next day and made two loaves of cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread (one was for my church Mom's group meeting). I put in all of the ingredients and ran it on the dough cycle and in an hour and a half, I had perfect dough ready to roll. I even used the time delay function to have fresh dough ready in the morning to make a loaf for the boys. My new bread machine works beautifully and for a very small investment.
One thing to think about if purchasing a bread machine from a thrift store is that it might not come with instructions. Mine did not, but I figured it out pretty quickly since I have used bread machines in the past. It's really not that hard to figure out and there are so many wonderful bread machine recipes online.
Frozen raspberries are one of my favorite healthy treats and they are so easy to make.
Since we love frozen raspberries, when I see raspberries on sale, I stock up and freeze extras. Of course, anytime you can get fresh picked berries, they will freeze wonderfully too. Frozen berries are delicious and they work well in recipes too.
Gently wash your raspberries and try to shake or blot off any excess water.
Place the berries in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.
Put in the freezer until berries are frozen. It doesn't take very long. You can easily freeze several pans in a day.
Transfer frozen berries to zipper seal freezer bags, then return them to the freezer.
This is a guest post written by my sister Catherine. She recently had twins and has been buying formula like crazy to keep up with them. This article is about her research involving name brand formula versus store brand. She is also a pharmacist and mother of 3.
With the twins' increased nutritional needs as they grow, their formula supplementation has increased and they are eating us out of house and home! (With brand name formula, anyway.) We intially used brand name Similac Advance we had stockpiled before their birth when CVS had 30% off employee discount days, combined with $5 manufacturer rebate checks on each can. That wasn't bad. Then we were getting it at the regular 20% off emp discount (which basically made it the same price as Wal-Mart & other big discount retailers, but CVS was just more convenient since Matt was already there) + rebate checks. Alas, we ran out of rebate checks last week. I then bought a big container of Similac for $21 at Wal-Mart, which only lasted about 3&1/2 days since we are feeding 2 babies 6 oz bottles every few hours. The next time, I ran out in a formula emergency to the closest grocery store to our house, HEB (a TX chain). I noticed they had a store brand of the Similac Advance for $11.88 for the large can vs $21 for the same size of the brand name, a greater than 40% savings. I broke down and bought one can of the generic to try out. (I had never used generic on any of my kids before) I found that it mixes well, the twins eat it with the same vigor as the name brand, and, in fact, their stools are more regular with the generic! This morning I went back to HEB and bought 3 more large cans to get us through the next several days, including our trip to Naples, FL this week. I didn't want to run out there since I don't think they have HEB. Which got me thinking and researching... Q: Does the same company that makes the HEB formula make other store brands in case I can't make it there? (One of the reasons I had always had a brand allegiance to Similac was that I could find it at any retailer that sold formula and know that my baby was being fed the same thing. I didn't want to introduce something new constantly, and chance gas, fussiness, etc...) A: Yes! I called the 800 # on the back of my formula can, which rang PBM Products, a USA company. I spoke to a rep and found out they make pretty much all of the store brand formula. (And it recently won another huge lawsuit against Mead Johnson, the maker of Enfamil, who had deceived customers into thinking that its product was somehow nutritionally superior to the store brand.) Q: Were there any additional coupons that could help me save even more on the store brand? A: Yes, I filled out an online form which will supposedly give me a $3 off coupon and I think I can call and request it monthly. (And I read on one blog that I may be able to get 2/month since I have twins.) Here are some links where I got my info: http://iamwickedcheap.com/2010/08/05/free-sample-parents-choice-walmart-brand-infant-formula/ http://www.pbmproducts.com/default.aspx http://www.storebrandformula.com/default.aspx Maybe you already knew all of this, but I found it to be eye-opening and exciting. I am hoping to largely use store brand formula from here on out till the twins are on milk. It shoud save us a ton of money! |
Welcome to Home Ec @ HomeHi, I'm Faith, a former Family and Consumer Science teacher turned food blogger. I love God, my family, and food. You can usually find me in the kitchen preparing family friendly, homemade recipes and taking lots of pictures. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesFan Favorites
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