Real Simple and eMeals: Get on this.

A week or so ago I had this text conversation with my sister.

Food on the Table is great if you want to plan your weekly meals around what's on sale. It gives you recipe suggestions for the things that are on sale at your local store. That's great, but honestly, I don't want to decide what to cook. I want someone to tell me, but they have to pick things I would pick if I was going to make the effort to pick.

And in case you're curious my text is referencing these two EatingWell publications: EatingWell on a Budget and EatingWell in Season. 

Then, last week I read this post from House of Belonging. It's about a new eMeals plan for Target customers. I was intrigued so I did a little investigating.

Conclusion: It's pretty awesome. You tell them your family size, pick a food plan (from 9 options like classic, gluten free, simple gourmet and paleo diet), and for $58 a year they give you a weekly dinner meal plan (main and side dishes). For several of the plans (classic for example) the meals are based on what's on sale in the store of your choice, for others not so much.

But I have this other little hang up. Not the $58 a year. At first that sounded like a lot and then I thought about how freeing it would be to not have to think about what to buy at the grocery store and how that was totally worth $1.12 a week especially if I bought things that were on sale and saved even more by not wasting food.

No, the thing I want is some visual appeal.  The sample plans on the eMeals site are, well, not as visually stimulating as I want.

Totally informative and would get the job done, but I want something more like Real Simple's Five easy dinners section complete with beautiful photography eye catching text. Even something more like their website would be an improvement.

For example, this is a screen capture of a recipe for chicken marsala on Real Simple:

See what I'm saying? Still chicken marsala, but I'm way more interested in cooking it.

So, just to be perfectly clear...

Universe, 

I would like a service that provides me with a meal plan based on what's on sale at my preferred store (including my preferences regarding purchasing the Dirty Dozen in organic), what I like to eat, what is in season, and has the visual appeal of Real Simple's food section to inspire me to make the food it tells me to. Actually, why don't you just convince eMeals to figure out a deal with Real Simple? That would rock my world.

Thanks!

Amber