A few weeks ago, the contributors of Cincinnati Moms Blog were given the opportunity to receive a subscription to My Happy Plates, a meal plan service that provides weekly meals and the grocery list with everything that you need.
I, for one, was VERY excited to try out My Happy Plates! I mean, there was the prospect for making my mom-life a little easier, what’s not to love?! Even though I was excited, my expectations were pretty low. I don’t know about you, but when I think of a meal plan service, I think of recipes that are hard to follow, extremely time consuming and require weird random ingredients. I kept an open mind and if nothing else, I had some new ideas to keep my families meal plan fresh.
I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the first week of meals. They were very similar to what I was already fixing, but with a new spin. The weeks that have followed have been no different. Each recipe only has a handful of ingredients. The ingredients are fresh and easily fit into our budget. The prep is minimal – chopping veggies or whipping up a quick marinade is as time consuming as it gets. Most of the recipes are well balanced as written, or you can easily add a vegetable if you want. Probably most importantly, everything I have made from My Happy Plates has been both kid and hubby approved!
Each Thursday, I look forward to the email that says “your meal plan has arrived!” They provide you with a “Meal Plan” link in the email. Once you click on the link, you have three different plan choices based on your family’s needs: Everyday Plan, Paleo Plan and Vegetarian Plan. You also have access to the weeks featured Smoothie and Juice recipe. And if the recipes aren’t enough, My Happy Plates gives you a ready made, organized, grocery list to save you that time-consuming step as well!
The meal plans are based on a single serving, but there is a quick and easy Excel download (that seamlessly downloaded into Numbers on my Mac) that allows you to plug in the servings needed for your family and recalculates the recipe and items needed for your grocery list.
I have been using the provided Everyday Plan almost exclusively for the last 3 weeks. I LOVE THEM! They have done all of the work! I just plug the meals in where they fit into my week, and go to the grocery store. No more sitting in front of Pinterest for hours trying to figure out what to put on the menu.
Now, the question I’m sure everyone has been dying to know the answer to….
Would I pay $6.95 a month for the service? Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!
If you haven’t already, go sign up for My Happy Plates, you won’t regret it!
Thanks so much for the review! What is the name of the Excel download that you used to recalculate your recipes. Is there an app on your phone that you can use to accomplish this?
Thanks a lot,
Jessica
Jessica! Thank you so much for your interest in My Happy Plates. It is definitely a service that I have grown to really love and depend on. Since the time of this posting, they have made great strides to make the service much more user friendly. I still receive a weekly email providing a link to my personalized plan and grocery list, but within my account, I can now set up how many days of meals I want and how many people are in my family. Stay tuned to Cincinnati Moms Blog for an updated review!