I like to plan things. It gives me the illusion of control. I don’t like standing at 5 pm at the refrigerator wondering what I am going to feed my family. I don’t like going out to eat, at least not all the time, or having oatmeal for dinner…again! So I started planning our meals. My process is rather cumbersome and time consuming. I sit down with all my recipes in books and on random pieces of paper, my calendar, a chart I made on the computer with the days of the week on it, and another chart I made for a categorized shopping list. Then I decide what I will make for each meal on each day based on our schedule for the week, then make a list based on the weeks menu, then check it against what I already have. It works really well, but it takes a lot of time that I just don’t have with three little girls running around.
So my very gifted computer literate husband has created a program that does what I do to create a meal plan based on our schedule. It then makes a shopping list from that weeks menu that is categorized by departments in the grocery store so I don’t have to run all the way back across for the one thing I forgot in produce. The address is www.plantoeat.com. Try it out, and let us know if you have suggestions.
How it works:
On the recipe book page you can add your favorite recipes and see your friends recipes. We intentionally did not make this a database of recipes because there are plenty of those already. This is designed to be a place to store the recipes you already know and love. Once a recipe has been added, you can drag it to the calendar at the bottom of the page. Any recipe that is on the calendar will be added to the shopping list.
On the shopping list page, all the individual items from each recipe on the calendar will appear separated by category. You can add items, delete items, or move them to a separate list if you have them in your pantry already.
The pantry page is designed to help jog your memory for staple items that you want to always have on hand. Once customized, any item can be moved to your weekly shopping list when you run out.
There are several new features on the way, but for now, Plan to eat has all the steps I use to plan our families meals for a week. We are excited to see what you think!
Check it out: www.plantoeat.com
