Wow, adjusting to our new everyday has definitely been a challenge. I still haven’t figured a lot out yet. The way the dance schedule has turned out this year, dinner has been quite late most days of the week. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday dinner is after 8:00 or 8:30, as that’s when the kids get home. This has presented a problem for myself, as I’m ready for dinner much earlier, and it’s leading to all sorts of ravenous snacking. I do want to wait and eat with them, but this is turning out to be more of a challenge than I thought!
Last night was Wednesday, though, which has its own set of challenges. The kids both have a ballet class until 6:00, and then we dash over to church to be ready for mid-week service half an hour later. These last two weeks I’ve met the kids at the dance door with sandwiches in hand. This has worked okay. Last week was a simple cold salami sandwich, yesterday I made hot ham and cheese on homemade rolls, and wrapped them individually in foil, then a towel, so they were still nice and warm and ready for the kids. But one lone sandwich quickly scarfed down while in transit, does not dinner make for two very active children. By the time I’ve picked them up from their intensive ballet class, their bodies are screaming for some calories. Next week I am hoping to try taking calzones on the run- and maybe I should start incorporating a yogurt smoothie.
What we’ve done the last two Wednesdays has been to have dessert when we get home from church. That’s actually fairly normal, that after evening services we either go out for frozen yogurt or custard, or come home and have a bowl of ice cream here at home. But this week I wanted to try something more substantial.
I was lucky to be a part of a beta testing group this summer for a meal-planning service created by Erin Chase from $5 Dinners. I’ve talked about her recipes before- the ones we’ve tried of hers have been good, solid recipes, and I was curious to see how she would put meal planning together. While I haven’t followed a meal plan fully yet, I have tried a recipe here and there, and I’ve also scrutinized each week to see what I would do differently. For the most part it’s been a very nice variety of food, and because it’s from the $5 Dinner Mom, you know the recipes are pretty economical once you have a decently stocked pantry to draw some basics from. The beta phase for the $5 Meal Plan is over, and I definitely recommend it if you need some help in that area. It’s an insanely affordable meal plan at just $5 a month- less than that if you pay in advance in six month or full year increments. The menus serve 4 people, so if you are cooking for more you’ll need to adjust, but I have found most of the recipes approachable, and easily adaptable if you have to change things up for your individual tastes. She also has a gluten-free plan option if your family needs to be gluten free.
Each week of the meal plan comes with a whole pile of recipes for you to enjoy. The week I have sitting right next to me has six dinner recipes, one breakfast (that could be dinner) recipe, one lunch (again, could be dinner) recipe, a side dish and a dessert. One of those recipes is also a slow-cooker recipe, and at least one recipe each week is also designated as being freezer-friendly, so you could make two and save one for another time. THIS is a plan designed for a busy family! It doesn’t stop there, though! In addition to these great, family-friendly recipes, Erin also has compiled a shopping list for you. The shopping list is very user-friendly and breaks everything down into department for shopping to make your time in the store more efficient. She suggests what items are pantry staples, so it’s extra easy to double check in your own pantry and then cross them off the list. And beyond all that, every item on the shopping list tells you which meals that is going to be used for- helping you to customize your trip AND save you both time and money by telling you what you should not buy if you’re not making a particular recipe.
The $5 Meal Plan is now available to everyone! And here’s the best part- the first four weeks of the plan are absolutely free to you with no catch whatsoever. Try it out for a full four weeks ( it gets delivered to your inbox early Friday afternoons) and decide if its right for your family with no strings attached. After the four weeks you can decide if you want to continue and pay for it, or if it’s not for you, you’ve lost nothing. You can sign up for your free trial (remember, no strings attached) at the $5 Meal Plan page, but if you want to do so, act quickly, because the free trial period is not going to last forever.
And now a teaser recipe. Last night, as I previously mentioned, I wanted to make dessert for when we got home last night. In a recent meal plan, there was a recipe for a Slow Cooker Pear Berry Crumble. I knew I needed to make it, but I wasn’t totally convinced a crumble in the crock pot was going to work. I decided to try it anyway. If it didn’t turn out, we’d just have ice cream on its own, but as it turned out, the crumble was delicious!
For myself, I used a quart of home-canned pears instead of the fresh pears. I left them in quarters and simply drained them of the juice before adding to my pot. Then I added half a bag of frozen blueberries from my summer bounty. I did not add the fresh cardamom- I recently used up my stash of cardamom pods, so I’ll have to pick up more. Then, when it came time for the topping, I opted to use brown sugar instead of white sugar, as I thought I’d prefer the flavor more. I’ll admit, it looked like a lot of topping when I had it all in the crock pot, but in the end, it was the perfect amount for me. The topping is my favorite part though! Zander thought there was a little too much topping for his tastes.
Overall this was a huge winner. It’s not overly sweet at all- the fruit is allowed to shine on its own, and once you add a scoop of ice cream, it’s perfectly balanced and not cloyingly sweet as crumbles can be sometimes. For this to be 4 servings would have been very generous portions- as it was, I served a pretty hefty portion to everyone since this was technically part of dinner. I still had one nice portion left which made a spectacular breakfast this morning.
I definitely recommend this one. It smelled wonderful when we walked in the door, and while it maybe would have been better being baked in the oven like a traditional crumble- to have it ready when we walked in was worth it.
Slow Cooker Pear Berry Crumble
from $5 Dinners
3 Anjou pears, peeled, cored and chopped
1 pint blueberries
about 1 Tbsp lemon juice, sprinkled
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
Dash of cardamom, optional
1 1/2 cup quick oats (substitute with certified GF oats)
1/2 cup flour (substitute with GF Flour mix)
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter (substitute with dairy-free margarine)
Optional: ice cream or whipped cream topping
Directions:
Spray slow cooker generously with non-stick cooking spray. (Oh, I don’t use cooking spray, I used a bit of olive oil rubbed around the pot)
Toss together the chopped pears and blueberries in the base of the slow cooker and sprinkle with a little lemon juice. Add the cinnamon, ginger and (if you have it on hand) a pinch full of cardamom.
In a small mixing bowl, combine the oats, flour, sugar. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or two knives.
Spread the topping evenly over the blueberries and pears in the base of the slow cooker.
Set on low and cook for 4 hours.
Serve Pear Blueberry Crumble as is, or with ice cream or whipped cream.