Menu Planning

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but over Christmas - we got an iPad, and upon the recommendation of a friend - I downloaded the Menu Planner App. This has literally changed my life! I don't have to keep notepads or anything around anymore - and I can plan until my heart is full.

It is so easy to add recipes or food items - you can do it either way, then look at a calendar with all of your meal plans right there on the screen. You can keep a recipe book, as well as import recipes from most of the popular recipe websites out there. (Food Network, Pilsbury, Taste of Home, Clean Eating, and many more) You will want to edit the recipes slightly when you import them - but it is super easy. The only thing that would make me love it more right now would be if they would develop the ability to import recipes from blogs.

Once you've planned your menu, you can then go into another portion of the program and make your grocery list. With a couple of clicks of a button - you can pull in the entire list of things needed for your menu plan recipes for whatever time frame you'd like to do your shopping for. You can then take things off of the list if you don't need them this trip - or add in other items as needed. Once you've got the list ready, you can export it to your email and print it for your shopping trip.

I've made it my goal to have all of our meals planned and my shopping list ready for Thursday mornings - as soon as I drop the boys off at school... I head to the store. I enjoy grocery shopping entirely too much - but that's beside the point - this app has made my least favorite part of the process even easier. I enjoy the cooking and prepping recipes - but the planning and preparing shopping lists stresses me out. I'd love to hear your tips and tricks on menu planning...