Mealime

Hey All! If you are here, it's because you are usually viewing my last photography session BUT today is my first non-photo post (although it includes phone pictures!).

If you know me, you know I dislike cooking. It's not the actual cooking, but the mess that I hate. Like most families, we barely have any time to plan, shop, cook and clean it all up until it's time for homework, showers, reading time and bed. I decided this was the year I would start doing a better job streamlining it all and I looked all over for help. Luckily a friend posted about this site called Mealime. You create a free account (paid if you need the nutrition data), pick the amount of meals you want and it creates a plan for you. You can swap through the meals until you get the ones you want. Once you have them picked, you can print a grocery shopping list. It gathers all the ingredients you need and combines them into ONE printed list, which is so amazing and saves so much time. I also print each individual recipe and keep the week's together on the fridge.

Every meal I've tried this week has been healthy and amazing tasting. I do have two little boys - 7 and 6 - who don't love everything healthy. They'd take Mac and cheese and pizza almost every night, so I did schedule a left over night where we had gluten free pizza...which was pretty tasty.

Here's the meals I picked for the first week.

Turkey + Vegetable Chili

https://cooking.mealime.com/recipes/turkey-vegetable-chili-avocado-cheddar-cilantro/2418

Yum! I would just cut the amount of turkey they want you to put in it! This was a during photo...the end was a little prettier!! It was all in ONE pot too! You can also eat this as leftovers with tortilla chips!

Taco Lettuce Wraps

https://cooking.mealime.com/recipes/taco-lettuce-wraps-cheddar/3436

We turned ours into a taco salad instead of individual wraps and I bought a box of corn taco shells for the kids (and the husband).

California Cobb Salad

https://cooking.mealime.com/recipes/california-cobb-salad-dijon-vinaigrette/2040

LOVE this salad but I'm a BIG fan of salad, especially Cobb salad. Basically I grilled the chicken, cooked and bacon and just added the other ingredients. I typically keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge so that's an easy grab and go for us. I even made the dressing which is a bit like a vinaigrette. I'd add way less red vinegar and more dijon but I liked the tang once I messed with the measurements. I also bought gorgonzola cheese instead of blue cheese and it was just as tasty.

The boys don't like salad too much, so we gave them the same grilled chicken, corn and a fruit. Easy swap!

Chicken Fingers

https://cooking.mealime.com/recipes/chicken-fingers-avocado-dip-greens-grape-tomatoes/2617

So this recipe was pretty great except we don't like coconut and also I should have actually followed the directions and baked them. I tried to cook them in the skillet and they got a little messy and were missing their breading.

I also did not like the avocado dressing. My avocado did not blend well and there was too much lime juice so I pitched it. I grabbed my dijon dressing I made the previous day and put it on my greens and tomato salad. I also found vegetable tater tots...aka corn nuggets and baked those for the kids. We like our nuggets a little crispy (promise I didn't burn them).

Overall this was a great recipe!