The Fresh 20, saving my sanity

Jonathan made FRIJOLES Y HUEVOS RANCHEROS the other night. I don't even know how to pronounce that out loud (only ever took French).

I have The Fresh 20 to thank for this.

Meal planning has never been my strong suit. Or my suit at all. I first learned about this genius subscription service on Hannah's post several weeks ago. I signed up for the free mini-week trial; we followed the shopping list and loved all of the recipes we made. They were running some sort of promo for St. Patrick's Day (?), so I took the plunge and signed up for a 6 month subscription!

Here's how it works:

• Every week you get a downloadable meal plan and shopping list. 
• Every meal plan comes with 5 recipes that require purchasing no more than 20 ingredients total (for all 5 meals!). There is a pantry list you are to keep stocked every week, however.
• All of the ingredients are "real food" - fresh / unprocessed.
• There's a cost estimate for all of the groceries on the ingredients page, which is then broken down into cost per meal.
• There are several plans available: "classic," vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free... they've thought of it all.

You'll end up making things like FRIJOLES Y HUEVOS RANCHEROS. Delicious and nutritious!

(This consists of a corn-wheat tortilla topped with black beans/red pepper/fennel mixture plus a poached egg, topped with cilantro, cheese, a little plain Greek yogurt, with sweet potato fries on the side.)

So so good. Everything we've made has been good! I love being able to offer this kind of food to the girls, to broaden their palettes and not rely on hodge-podge standbys night after night.

Each recipe takes about 30ish minutes to prepare. This would be greatly shortened if we would take the beginning-of-the-week prep advice clearly laid out for you on page 1 (most of the chopping, roasting, shredding, etc.). If you already had all your stuff prepped, these meals wouldn't take long at all. 

Many thanks to my dear husband for preparing most of these meals (he has been getting home early for the past few weeks). We'll enjoy this while we can! 

Having the guesswork taken out of dinner has been huge for us, as well as knowing we're preparing fresh, healthy foods that aren't the same week after week. I highly recommend!