I have a confession to make. I may run a website. I may have self-published ebooks. I may own a laptop and an iPhone. BUT. I am not a technical, computer-loving person. No sir.
My husband actually finds it funny (or irritating, it may depend on the day) how incredibly inept I am when it comes to using most electronic devices. DVD players and universal remote controls? I'm useless. Using my iPhone for more than making a basic phone call? My 7 year old is teaching me how.
All that to say, you would think that when it comes to menu planning, I would be a pen and paper kind of gal. And you would be right.
However, last week I decide to challenge my technologically-impaired self and go back to doing my menu planning online. A couple of years ago I was introduced to Plan to Eat, an online recipe, menu planning and grocery-list program. At that time, I recognized how useful the program could be and I jumped into trying it out. I thought it was a brilliant solution and really loved the idea of using it. But, since most of my beloved recipes were in cookbooks or written on cards, I relegated to my pen and paper ways after a while.
Things have changed, though. Increasingly, I find more and more of my go-to recipes are from online sources (mostly blogs, some large recipe websites, and others from ebooks that I never get around to printing out). I've begun to somewhat use Pinterest as a way to at least store them and remember where they are, but I needed something even better than that.
Last week, I returned to Plan to Eat and realized just what a perfect program it is for those who find their food inspiration online!
A Simple Way to Store and Organize Your Recipes Online
You can import and store your favorite recipes, using categories (breakfast, salad), food ethnicities (Mexican, Italian, etc.) and tags (fast, crockpot, guests) to store them and then search through them later to find what kind of meal you're looking for. From some websites, importing them is as simple as clicking a button. From blogs, ebooks, etc. it's a copy and paste process, a few fill-in-the-blanks, and presto. Your recipe is in the system.
You can also share recipes with friends, giving them access to your recipes and vice versa. No more running back to Pinterest to find that recipe I think I store there, or to search through my most-frequented blogs, trying to find the recipe that I think I might have seen here last month.
Did I mention that it's super easy, even for the technologically impaired?
Once the recipes are in there, you go about your meal planning as you usually would, but you simply drag and drop the recipes you want into the days when you want to make them. As you do this, a grocery list is automatically generated. You can use it to compare it to what you already have in the fridge and pantry, so that you don't forget to buy anything required for one of your meals.
With my two-week meal plan complete, I printed it off (to put on my fridge) as well as a good number of the recipes that were included. Since they each print out nicely on one sheet of paper, I thought it might be a convenient way to build up a small binder with the meals we eat most often, so that I have all of those recipes in one easy-to-access place. As opposed to my current system (now which binder/website/recipe card/cookbook was that recipe in?). Ahem.
And, for those who actually know how to use their smart phones, you can ditch the pen and paper all together and simply view (and check off items) on your grocery list, using the Plan to Eat app. How cool is that? I'm sure my 7 year old already knew that.
Try It for Free
If you're totally unsure of what Plan to Eat is all about or whether you would use a system like this, they offer a free 30-day trial. Take a tour, try importing some of your recipes, play around with the planner functionality, see how the grocery list works.
Membership is very reasonable at $4.95 a month, or (a better deal) $39 a year, which works out to $3.25 per month.
Plan to Eat has been our premium sponsor at Keeper of the Home this winter, and they're definitely a business that I love to work with and highly recommend! Since I am a huge believer in meal planning, I've always recommended them to those who are friendly with technology, and yes, even to the backwards gals like myself. :)
Or You Could Win It... I have 3 One-Year Subscriptions to Give Away!
Rather than simply leaving comments, I'm trying out a new method for entering giveaways. Click below to complete one Rafflecopter form, for all of your multiple entries, and then you're done!
I love Plan to Eat.
I love Plan to Eat. I use it right now to do my meal planning and I love that you can share recipes with other Plan to Eat users.
I have a hard time planning ahead - this might just be the trick to get me out of my rut and into a more systematic approach. I'd love to win to try it out.
Like you, my meal planning has changed so much. I think this would just help me streamline so much!! I just need a better system. :)
It would help me to keep up better with all my recipes!
Oh goodness. I desperately need this. I am doing GAPS and sometimes I get so overwhelmed I want to crawl back into bed. I sometimes freeze up. We have been into this for 7 months now and are sort of hitting a rut. I have looked into other's plans, but have a hard time since I want to use food we do have, rather than hunting down things we don't. This seems a great system.
I seriously need some help in this area. I try and try and try to be consistent but I fail.
I just need to actually start menu planning. I sit down to do it, and can never think of what I want to cook. Our schedule is also always changing, so it's hard to plan what nights I have time to cook and what nights I need something quick.
I'm hoping to transition all of my recipes and meal-planning online because we're going to be moving overseas, and the less paper I need to take with me, the better.
We will be moving overseas and will need to have a good meal plan ahead of time. We will be shopping at a military commissary that is about 1 hour away and will need to be well organized with our shopping.
I love to meal-plan but it's hard to gather recipes from so many different sources. None of my organizational attempts have succeeded so far . . . maybe this would be "the one!"
My meal planning consists of planning the evening meal in the morning/afternoon. I SO want to start planning! I do get a lot of recipes online, so maybe Plan to Eat would help me get going.
I plan on meal planning EVERY week. I save so much money! I am usually pretty good at it. But this would help streamline!
I never know what to cook and I hate waiting until the last minute!
I'm not very organized when it comes to meal planning, and I always get behind. This would be GREAT for me, especially with our first baby due soon!
meal planning goal: including our soon to be 1 yr old in our meals
I really would love a tool to help me utilize our food budget and time cooking more efficiently, and access to healthy recipes would be wonderful!
I'd LOVE to win Plan to Eat! I have the goal to plan meals....sometimes I try weekly, sometimes I dream about trying monthly planning. So far, I can do the weekly for about 2-3 weeks, then life gets busy and it falls apart on me.
With 3 little girls, I would love to be able to have meals all planned out!
My meal planning goal? Switching us over to entirely gluten-free... without having to constantly eat the same things!
My meal planning goal is to actually do it! I always have good intentions, but rarely follow through. I think doing it online will help a ton!
My meal planning goal is to stay consistent this year! I've been so off/on when it comes to planning ahead, but I really want to keep it up!
I'd love to go paperless with my recipes! They always get so messy in the kitchen!
I wish I had something to help me plan my meals. This looks more customizable than others I've seen, that pick out the meals for me.
The idea of importing my recipes easily sounds wonderful.
Would love to try this out!
I need to get better at meal planning, as my food shopping comes in two week cycles (local food buying club)
I had surgery that makes it important that I watch what I eat. Meal planning is necessary for me and this looks like it would be a great way to do that!
i'm horrible with meal planning... so i'm trying to start planning at least 1/2 my meals. i'm hoping to work my way up to more.
I have debated about signing up for Plan to Eat and after reading this post I think it would be worth it. Especially at the reasonable price that it is. It would be even better to win the 1st year free. Thank you
I need help meal planning we have had too many days with hot dogs and PB&J
I am trying to meal plan at least 2 weeks in advance if not a whole month!
How have I never heard of this before? Wow! Definitely sounds like something I have to check out. :)
Plan to Eat would be GREAT for helping me not only plan my meals but also generate a shopping list very easily. That would save a lot of time and money.
Putting food on the table every night is easier when I have a plan. My goal is to keep it up.
I've just recently started menu planning, and it's making my life a lot easier... but all of my recipes are online!! Something like this would really simplify the process, I think...
My goal is to plan dinners for every week this year with at least 3 beans meals planned for budget help. I think this could really help me to consolidate and organize all of my recipes.
Need help with cooking...so overwhelmed with re-starting the farm and business after moving out of state!
Sounds like just what I'd need. Thanks for the giveaway!
My goal is to have some sort of menu for the month so that I will be better prepared to cook for my family. :)
Boy this sounds AWESOME! how fun!
My plan this year is to eat less meat. Incorporating more vegetarian meals is the goal!
I think a meal planning guide would be a great fit for me because I'm a baker and not a cook so I have no creativity when it comes to cooking meals.
I just had baby #4 and need some help getting back into the meal planning swing of things.
Plan to Eat looks like a wonderful product for meal planning!!
I hope to plan for a month at a time instead of just a week.
I would love to streamline my meal planning. My goal is to make all or most of our meals from scratch, with minimal processed food, and to use up what we have on hand on a regular basis rather than always purchasing new stuff.
I get all my ideas on line. this will be perfect.
I want to budget better, and I know that meal planning is a big part of that!
i tried plan to eat and LOVED it. just can't do any extra stuff at this time and got some cheap software so i'm trying to go back to it. we could use all the help we can get being grain free and combo of gaps/scd. thanks! :)
I'm just starting to get back into meal planning and having something that actually makes my shopping list too... so great! I will definitely be checking out the free month trial.