A little imagination and the generous talent of our creative team affords us the freedom to think up more fun and frugal ways to help you celebrate the ones you love.
These printable “valentines” are perfect for your kids to pass out at school, to hide in a child’s lunchbox or to attach to a gift of home-made confections (like the amazing cupcakes from Wednesday’s post).
Click here to download the pdf and print our Valentine cards… made with love for you.
[Excerpt from Dave Ramsey's EntreLeadership Spotlight - Jan. 11, 2012] EntreLeadership is not just a theory. Thousands of business owners and leaders are using Dave’s principles every day to take their companies and team members to heights they never imagined. This EntreLeadership Spotlight series is highlighting some of these great leaders and learn about their dreams, motivation and secrets to success.
I’m Founder and President of E-Mealz Inc., a budget-minded online meal planning service that features easy-to-follow shopping lists and recipes.
My inspiration grew out of my frustration with the difficulty of pulling off dinner for my own family. One week would be semi-sane with a scribbled-down meal plan on a napkin lost in the bottom of my purse and the next would be sheer chaos. But I was committed to making my family life ordered around an evening meal, where everyone could decompress and come face-to-face with each other. There had to be an easier way.
I have been influenced by many people, but no one comes near to matching the level of impact my parents had on me and on the core of who I am as a person. They are rock solid. Character, integrity, godliness, wisdom, steadfastness, love, grace, strength and dignity only begin the list of who they were to me … and still are.
Without sounding cliché, I am inspired by our great country and the freedom we each have to create, pursue and succeed. I look back on the eight-year business story of E-Mealz with profound gratitude—knowing that in many other countries there simply would have been no such story.
Freedom has come to me on so many levels, and that inspires me. The fact that I have not had to suffer personally for my freedom is a sacred gift—one that has been handed to me by others who have suffered in my place. I was bought with a price when Christ gave His life for me. Through the grief and loss of every war fought and the loss of every American soldier, I have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness today. For that, I am thankful and inspired to live gratefully, fully and freely.
All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg. It’s a great book that was recommended as an all-time favorite by a very sharp young man who has freelanced his amazing talent and time for E-Mealz.
To simply see the strong growth of E-Mealz continue so that the overflow of its success spills over in powerful and compassionate ways to “the least of these.” We don’t have to look very far to find opportunities to give out of God’s goodness to us.
I am a firm believer in doing the “obvious.” One “obvious” that God laid across my path has been the malnutrition and orphan epidemic that exists a short distance from our shores in Haiti.
E-Mealz has partnered with a nutrition project feeding “medika mamba,” which means “peanut butter medicine” in Creole, to severely malnourished Haitian children and orphans. Seeing and touching one of these little ones is something I will never forget. Feeding families is core to our values as a company, and my dream is to see E-Mealz become a strong, compassionate presence in Haiti now and over time.
Valentine’s Day is around the corner and we are all looking for new and fun ideas to celebrate. Whether it is baking cupcakes, making valentines cards, or a new DIY craft, E-Mealz has your covered this year. So don’t sweat the details, we have them all here for you and ready to use. Make Valentine’s Day extra fun this year for your family and friends with these 3 cupcake recipes wrapped in festive cupcake wrappers!
Dark Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Fudge Marshmallow Fudge Icing
Cupcake Ingredients:
24 paper liners
1 package of chocolate cake mix
¼ cup All-Purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened coca powder
1 ½ cups buttermilk
½ cup of vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ semi sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 °. Line your cupcake cups with paper liner. In a mixing bowl, place cake mix, flour, cocoa powder, buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla and beat with a electric mixer on low speed until all the ingredients are incorporated. Increase the electric mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Use a ice-cream scooper and scoop a heaping ¼ cup of cupcake batter into the liner. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cupcakes to cool completely.
Frosting Ingredients:
2 cups of granulated sugar
1 can (5 ounces) evaporated milk
10 large marshmallows
8 tablespoons soft butter
1 cup (6ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
In a saucepan place granulated sugar, evaporated milk and marshmellow over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon while it comes to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 6 minutes and continue to stir. Remove from heat and add a stick of butter, chocolate chips and vanilla. Continue to stir until frosting is thick and chips and butter have melted. Use the frosting immediately. Scoop a heaping full of frosting on the cupcake or use a frosting bag and your tip preference and get creative! We topped the cupcake with a sugar paper heart that we cut out with a small heart cookie cutter.
Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Icing
Cupcake Ingredients:
18 paper liners
1 box of strawberry cake mix
½ cup of sour cream
2 tablespoons of strawberry gelatin
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350°. Prepare cake mix as directed and add the remaining ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer until all ingredients are incorporated. Increase the electric mixer to medium speed and beat for 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Use an ice-cream scooper and scoop a heaping ¼ cup of cupcake batter into the liner. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cupcakes to cool completely.
Frosting Ingredients:
1 cup of strawberries
1 stick of soft butter
1 large bag of confection sugar
Puree your strawberries in a food processor. Place in a saucepan your strawberries and butter until all the butter is melted. Remove from heat and add confection sugar 1 cup at a time and continue to add until you get your desired consistency. We topped our cupcake with fresh strawberries.
Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream Icing
Cupcake Ingredients:
1 large lemon
1 package of plain yellow cake mix
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar
1 cup warm water
½ cup of vegetable oil
3 large eggs
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350°. Line 24 cupcakes with paper liner. Rinse your lemon and dry. Grate 1 tablespoon of zest from lemon. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze a third of lemon juice into a small bowl. Place the lemon zest and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl. Add cake mix, granulated sugar, water, oil, eggs and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until all ingredients are incorporated. Increase the electric mixer speed to medium and mix an additional 1 ½ to 2 minutes. With a icecream scooper, scoop a heaping ¼ cup into each lined cupcake cup. Place in oven and bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cupcakes to cool completely.
Frosting Ingredients:
8 tablespoons of soft butter
3 ¾ cups of confectioners’ sugar
4 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 lemon
Directions:
Grate the lemon and place the zest on wax paper and sprinkle with sugar and let dry. Place butter in a medium-size bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy. Add confectioners’ sugar and 3 tablespoons of milk, a bit at a time beating with an electric mixer until all confectioners’ sugar is well incorporated. Add the vanilla and increase mixer speed to medium and beat frosting until it is light and fluffy. You can add milk if the frosting is too stiff. Top the cupcake with your dried sugar lemon zest.
Choose which recipe you want to make or maybe make all three and wrap them in these cute cupcake wrappers for a pretty treat for anyone to enjoy! Simply click here to print off our Valentine’s Day cupcake wrappers. Stay tuned for our printable Valentine’s cards coming to the blog soon!
Well, if there ever was a day when you can bet where the majority of the our country will be, it’s Sunday week, February 5th, when the Patriots and the Giants duke it out for #1. I’m not a die-hard fan of either team, but a huge fan of all the hype that goes into this yearly ritual. The advertising war alone is fun to watch. Halftime has ruined us forever. No more wardrobe malfunctions!
For some, it’s just another excuse for a party. And that’s fine with me. If you’ve been paying attention, it’s a frenzy out there, with all of the party ideas, recipes and menus that are being served up by many. E-mealz is in the mix with our delicious party menu for you and all of your friends.
For these next 2 weeks, E-mealz is giving a Big Game Party Menu for all new subscribers and it’s available to all of our members, as well. It’s a great menu for a party spread that’s complete with the standard E-mealz instructions and grocery list that’s all thought through to make it easy on you to implement. Most people don’t want to host a party but are more than willing to bring something. For my party, I sent the list out to our friends who are coming over for the game and everyone ‘called’ a dish!
See our party menu below:
So, come see us at E-mealz. Join in and don’t miss out on the food and the fun. And, I hope your team wins!
This is a article that a blogger, Caffeine and a Prayer, wrote about us and we felt like it was worth sharing. Enjoy! 
Things I Love: E-Mealz.com Menu Planner
I am the opposite of a domestic goddess — does that make me a domestic demon? I have tried to put together weekly and monthly menu plans and I’m just terrible at it. There comes a time when you have to admit defeat and outsource! My neighbor “M” is a relatively new stay-at-home mom (SAHM) and yet seems to have her act far more together than I do as a veteran SAHM so I asked her about her menu planning and she pointed to her oh-so-organized bulletin board in her kitchen and a print out from E-mealz.com. “They plan everything out, it usually has five ingredients or less, and it has the shopping list all organized for you,” she told me as our children played chaotically in the background.
It took me a while to get around to it — I mean I have literally shelves and shelves of cookbooks and two recipe boxes, surely I could manage to do this on my own?! But finally I caved in and signed up. And now I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner. JavaBoy has always been a challenge when it has come to non-dairy proteins, and yet, he has loved every recipe from E-Mealz. I have him review the week’s recipes beforehand to see if there is anything he won’t like and so far he’s approved every option, even the ones I was certain he wouldn’t like, and he’s eagerly gobbled them down. JavaGirl, who is going through an I’m-five-so-my-tastes-change-by-the-hour phase, has also enjoyed all the meals. Whenever possible, I involve them in the cooking because I always find that helps them get more excited about the meals. The service has different selections of plans: standard, portion-controlled, budget-friendly, low-carb, gluten-free, natural/organic, and vegetarian. Because I am diabetic, we are using the low-carb version.
We have been trying some recipes that I probably wouldn’t have picked out myself and yet my family really enjoyed, so this has been a good way to push ourselves. Although we aren’t doing the “budget” plan, I’ve found it to be economical and we are certainly wasting less food because I’m not buying stuff with the intention to cook it and never getting around to it. Because I tend to cook the larger size of the range of the recipe (i.e. if it says 1.5 – 2.25 pounds of meat, I choose 2.25 pounds) we have plenty of leftovers to use for lunch for myself and my husband (and sometimes the kids ask if they can take the leftovers for lunch for school!) or even to have a second night of dinner. Often there is a crockpot night or two, which I love, especially for the nights when my kids have choir practice. Though it kills me to smell that wonderful food when I’m home during the day.
I cannot tell you how much stress this has alleviated for us as a family. No trying to figure out what’s for dinner. Grocery shopping is easier because we know what we’re going to eat and everything is listed for us. I go through the list and all the non-perishables that are needed for the week, I put into a clear storage box in the butler’s pantry so that it doesn’t accidentally get used for something else and is also easy to find for that night’s meal (not only for myself but in case my husband ends up cooking that night — he doesn’t have to hunt up various spices and canned goods.)
I loved it when I explained to the kids we were having Hamburger Soup (really a variation of a beef and barley with vegetables) and JavaGirl said “show me the box” and I said, “No, Mommy made this from SCRATCH! It’s been simmering on the stove for two hours!” It really didn’t take long to put together and yet it was yummy and gave me a great sense of satisfaction to provide homemade soup for the family. Granted, “scratch” might have been a stretch as it did involve some canned tomatoes and canned broth, but there were fresh vegetables, barley, fresh spices, and of course, ground beef.
There are several meal planning services out there, I checked quite a few out and asked friends for recommendations and ultimately decided on this one because I liked the format, the sample menus they showed, the low cost and because my neighbor was so happy with it. If you are interested in researching them, enter the phrase “meal planning” in your favorite search engine.
Things I Love will be an occasional series on Caffeine and a Prayer where I highlight items or services that make life in the Java household a little easier or just make me happy and I hope will delight you as well. Other than being a paid subscriber, I have no relationship with E-Mealz.com and they have no idea I’m writing about them — I’m just a really happy customer.
Looking back on it, I wish I made a small edit to my marriage vows. They were beautiful, but I should have tweaked them slightly like this:
To have and to hold, to never call your wife and tell her you are unexpectedly bringing some people over for dinner that night.
Jon and Jenny Acuff talking about E-Mealz from their hospitable kitchen
Maybe my husband Jon is the only one who does that. Maybe your husband sends you a text weeks in advance that says, “I love you so much sweetiecakes. Do you mind if I have one of my coworkers over for dinner in three weeks? Is that ample time for us as a family to prepare a meal for our guest?”
But, I suspect I am not alone in the last second dinner party dilemma.
And although it happens less in our 11th year of marriage than it did in our 1st, it still happens. Only now, I’m not afraid of last second dinners. Now I’m the queen of the quick meal. Why?
How so? Well there are three ways that E-Mealz helps me throw together a last second dinner party.
With my meal plan, I can buy a handful of meals all at once. Gone are the days where I spend $150 at the supermarket and then unload all the groceries and think, “Wait, is there a single meal I can make out of these apparently randomly selected food items?” If I get the call Tuesday night an hour before Jon gets home that we’re having company for dinner, I just make Tuesday’s dinner. Instead of scrambling in my pantry, I just make the meal I already planned to make. The portions of E-Mealz are generous so I don’t have to worry about having enough for everyone either.
Some days, if I’m in a “kitchen mood,” I’ll make 2 or 3 meals all at once and freeze two of them. Last second dinner guest? Bring it on. I’ll just hit the freezer, heat it up and pretend I slaved away all day.
The other night, my six year old daughter said, “How come you didn’t make your famous meatballs for dinner tonight?” My first thought was, “Because they’re complicated and require roughly a billion steps.” I still have a lot of complicated family recipes in my back pocket, but E-Mealz has taught me that simple can be delicious. The meal plans offer complex flavors without complicated steps. I love that because it helps me create meals quickly.
Jon is a writer so he helped me edit this article and wanted to point out that he’s gotten a lot better when it comes to dinner parties. That’s true, kind of, but more than that, I’ve gotten better at handling last second dinner parties. And it’s all because of E-Mealz.
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Jenny Acuff is a mom of two adorable daughters. She lives in Franklin, TN with her husband Jon.
E-Mealz really enjoyed the answers we received on Facebook to our question of the day. We asked our fans “If your kitchen were a cooking show, what would it be called?” We got such a kick out of the comments we wanted to share some of them with you. Each comment was hilarious, creative or unique and the office was full of laughter and certainly impressed with the creativity of our fans! While we could not share all of them with you, we wanted to share some of our favorites. Visit our Facebook Fan Page for the rest of the entertaining comments and feel free to leave your own.
1. Say Yes To The Mess
2. Hell’s Kitchen
3. May Be Good, May Be No Good
4. Burnt Offerings
5. Off The Air Due To Technical Difficulties
6. Hot Mess
7. Lord Have Mercy
8. Dirty Job
9. Intestinal Express
10. He Cooks, She Doesn’t
11. Where’s The Smoke, There’s Dinner
12. Mess To Meals
13. Black and White Static
14. Take It or Leave It
15. Feed The Need With Speed
Did you know that today is national pie day? In honor of this very drool worthy day, we decided to offer up a decadent coconut praline cream pie recipe for you to try out with your family. This recipe is not only delicious, but it looks pretty too! We have made this pie many times for family holidays, small group gatherings, and it’s even won a few “best pie” awards in friendly competitions with friends and family. We hope you and yours enjoy this recipe as much as we do!
Praline Coconut Cream Pie
1 baked 9″ pie crust
Praline layer:
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter
Melt together, stirring constantly, until sugar loses its graininess. Quickly pour into the bottom of the prepared crust, spreading to cover. Sprinkle with 1 c chopped pecans. Set aside.
Coconut Layer:
1c sugar
3 tbs flour
2 egg yolks
2 14 oz cans evaporated milk
pinch salt
Whisk together until well mixed and add:
1 c coconut
Microwave for 9 minutes or so, stirring about every minute, until mixture coats a spoon.
Let cool for a bit and stir in 2 tsp mexican vanilla (if it is available to you or regular vanilla if not–we used reg vanilla) and 2 T butter. Pour over cooled praline layer and chill with a layer of greased plastic wrap over the surface.
Just before serving whip a pint of cream with sugar to your taste and place a thick layer over top of the pie. Sprinkle with toasted coconut. Serves 8.
In honor of national pie day, what is your favorite pie? Do you have an award winning recipe you want to share with us in the comments? We’d love to hear!
Click on video play button below to hear Jane talk about E-Mealz this past Monday on ABC.
