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Isn’t it a never-ending battle to survive the Christmas season with all the holiday desserts and goodies? Then, just as you feel that you are making progress…boom! Here comes Valentine’s Day! Even if you’re not sharing this annoyingly sweet day with a special honey, our world has broadened the scope of ‘who’ gets to participate by tweaking it’s application to any ‘sweet’ relationship. You can celebrate Valentine’s Day with your honey OR your kids, your mom and/or dad, grandparents, your siblings, your friends and neighbors…just about anyone! There will be Valentine goodies EVERYWHERE YOU GO! At work, at church, at the grocery store and anywhere you may be.

Truthfully…I can pass up all kinds of sweets. Candies, cakes, cookies, chocolate this or that…I’m really not that tempted by them. However, the ONE thing I can’t keep my hands off is brownies. To me, it’s the perfect dessert. It’s heavier than cake, but not quite a cookie. The buttery, chocolate chewy goodness is, to me, irresistible. I would challenge anyone to make a straight up brownie, no nuts or extra flavors, from scratch, that rivals my favorite….Ghirardelli’s brownies. Hands down, it is the perfect recipe for the best brownies.

If you want to indulge, go to your grocer and purchase a box of Ghirardelli’s brownie mix and enjoy the warm amazingness that just simply can’t be matched. Serve them with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.  Drizzle with a little caramel sauce, or, change it up with coffee ice cream and some chocolate sprinkles. Me? I’ll take mine solo.

You can go to Ghirardelli’s website and purchase all kinds of sweet confections AND brownies if you’d like.  Here’s a link for some coupon codes to use at checkout if you find something you want!

www.retailmenot.com/view/ghirardelli.com

In this ol’ world, sharing love and extending our hearts to one another is as needed as ever. Those caught in our cyber-social-isolated-culture craves connection and meaningful relationships. I hope you’ll find someone to show your love to in a personal and meaningful way this go around. Happy Valentine’s Day <3

One of the main reasons I decided to team up with eMeals was seeing all of the incredible comments about the company from so many of you on Facebook. Most businesses struggle to find two or three somewhat happy customers who are willing to provide a testimonial for their website.   eMeals literally has hundreds of customers each month who voluntarily write raving reviews all over the Internet.

We appreciate your support and plan to continue to take our cues from you as we improve and expand our products. Based on your feedback, we are introducing the following new enhancements for eMeals:

• Plan Delivery. We will provide you the option of receiving your meal plan by email each week – in addition to it always being available for download from our website. If you would like to receive your plan by email, please visit the member page to opt in.

• Plan Switching. We want happy customers who are using the right plan for their situation. Going forward users will be able to switch their plans once a month from the member login page. If you have still not landed on the right plan, just contact customer support at support@emeals.com and they will take care of you.

• For Two Plans. We are expanding our “For Two” menus to include seven meals each week instead of five. Of course, you can continue to cook as many meals as you’d like in a given week, but now you will have more variety to choose from. There is nothing that you need to do from your end.

I hope that you will find these changes helpful, and as always, we welcome your ongoing feedback.

Thanks to all of you, eMeals has been growing by leaps and bounds. We now provide over 30 different meal plans each week and have helped hundreds of thousands of busy people put food on the table and spend more time with their family and loved ones.

As we continue to grow and plan for the future, I am excited to announce that Forrest Collier has joined eMeals as our new CEO. Forrest most recently served as CEO of InternetSafety.com before its sale to McAfee. InternetSafety.com is the maker of the Safe Eyes parental control software that helps families keep their children safe on the Internet. Forrest was also a co-founder of Highland Capital Holding Corporation and held various positions with American Airlines.

Forrest comes to eMeals for two great reasons. First, he is an experienced entrepreneur who enjoys helping take companies to the next level.  Second, he loves to eat!  While not exactly a chef, Forrest has always appreciated a good meal. With family roots deep into Louisiana, and a wife that is a great cook, he leans towards food with lots of flavor, spice and variety. Favorites include medium-well steaks, Cajun seafood, chips and salsa, newfangled Asian food and old-fashioned vegetables.

Forrest and his wife ,Jean Anne, live in Birmingham and make use of the new eMeals Whole Foods plan to help feed their three children. Please join me in welcoming Forrest to our team!

Jon and Jenny Acuff in their sunny and hospitable kitchen

Mark your calendars for our first live Facebook Party with our favorite Valentine couple, Jon and Jenny Acuff. Wednesday, February 15 we will all meet at the eMeals Facebook at 1:00 CST. We will pretend we are chatting with Jon and Jenny in their kitchen, cup of coffee in hand.

Jenny has recently started writing blog posts for our blog, revealing how “iron sharpens iron” in the Acuff house. Jenny is “sweet as pie,” but you can see in “How to Throw a Last Second Dinner Party” that her wit matches his, and it is easy to see why they are such an iconic couple.

Jon challenged us all last year with his 90-Day “Bring Dinner Back Challenge“. He and Jenny both have many practical, philosophical and funny twists on the importance and opportunities of regular dinnertime at home.

Don’t miss this special  way to get to know Jon and Jenny, and hear how they have fully integrated eMeals into their lifestyle and family life. Come prepared with your questions for them, invite your friends and get ready to have a blast.

We wanted to give you a sneak peek into a change that will take place tomorrow as the company transitions its name from E-Mealz to the slightly simpler version of eMeals.   If you say it out loud, it sounds the same, but is easier to spell.  We basically needed to get rid of the dash and exchange the Z for an S…like a game of scrabble.  You should only notice slight changes and there is nothing that you need to do from your end.

Check out the new logo below and let us know what you think!

The average US consumer spends around $100 on Valentine’s Day. It’s amazing how quickly dinner, flowers, chocolates, and cards can add up. In case you think you’ve used up all your frugal ideas, here’s a few more to add to your arsenal:

• Gift Ideas
• Do that one chore or favor for your significant other that they’ve been hinting at for a while
• A great resource for ideas is on Pinterest, when you search for Valentine’s Day
• Photobooks of pictures filtered in with stories from your relationship
• Make a framed collage of each of these states: the state your spouse is from, the state you are from, and the state where you live now in the center.
• 52 reasons I love you: Take a deck of cards, hole punch them, and tie together with ribbon. On each of the cards, write a reason…some serious, some funny of why you love your spouse.
• Other Helpful Tips:
• Buy a Groupon deal to use for going out for your Valentine’s Day dinner.
• Cards are notoriously overpriced. Save a few dollars by simply penning your love a note on stationary. Besides, it’s your words that matter, not the color or the words on the card.
• The best way to save money is to cook dinner at home. We’ve made it easy for you, so all you have to do is become an E-Mealz member and get our free frugal Valentine’s Day Dinner for Two that has an entire menu done for you along with grocery list.

At the end of the day, Valentine’s Day is just another opportunity to share with the one you love just how much they mean to you. The quality time and effort you put in will show far more how much you care than any expensive gift.

We’d love to hear your frugal Valentine’s Day gift ideas! Please share them in the comments.

Valentine’s Day first became associated with love and affection during the Middle Ages, with paper “valentines” secretly and openly shared from the beginning. (Be sure to download our Printable “Valentines” to share in secret… or not.)

Interestingly enough, Valentine’s Day is  recognized internationally on February 14– across Europe to celebrate friendship as well as romance, in Asia where the women give chocolate to the men and in Latin America where “Día del Amor y la Amistad” (Day of Love and Friendship) is celebrated.

So Valentine’s Day is a touch point with the World and with lovers of the ancient past. But with all it’s history, Valentine’s Day is simply a beautiful excuse for us to shower some appreciation on the ones who bring love and laughter into our lives. Why not share a gift of love from your kitchen this year?

Because aside from Valentine’s Day being the most romantic holiday of the year, cooking is a love language all its own. Our culinary cupids have been busy creating a romantic dinner menu to further indulge you in the quest for a frugal and fabulous celebration.

Our special Valentine Menu includes:

Bacon Wrapped Eye of Round Steaks with Mushroom Gravy
Hasselback Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus
Easy Fresh Salad
Chocolate Cheesecake For Two

This Valentine Dinner For Two is created with love from our kitchen to yours, available for free to all our members! Just login to your account and look for it on the left hand side of your members page.

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.

What I Do

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.

How I Started

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.

My Mentor

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.

My Inspiration

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.

What I’m Reading Right Now

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.

My Dream

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!