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Plan to Eat Meal Planner


ajfries
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I just wanted to spread the word that Plan to Eat is going on sale for $20 for a year's subscription next week. You can do a free 30 day trial, so if you signed up for that now, you could try it out for a week & see if it'd be worth it.

 

I imported almost 30 recipes to it yesterday from various websites and had no trouble what-so-ever with them copying properly. I'm pretty amazed by it, actually. Then you can make a meal plan by dragging and dropping and it creates a shopping list for you based on the recipe's ingredients that you planned on making.

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Ok. Seriously. I am amazed at this program. I'm making next week's menu and watching the shopping list change with each recipe I add is shockingly cool.

 

For those of you who already use it, do you rotate the same meal plans for the most part or do you use quite a variety when your planning? It would be so easy to just rotate a few weeks worth of meals.

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I will be renewing my subscription on Black Friday because I love plan to eat.

 

Ok. Seriously. I am amazed at this program. I'm making next week's menu and watching the shopping list change with each recipe I add is shockingly cool.

 

For those of you who already use it, do you rotate the same meal plans for the most part or do you use quite a variety when your planning? It would be so easy to just rotate a few weeks worth of meals.

I usually do something different each week. Just depending on what I'm in the mood for. There are quite a few meals that I make frequently though. I haven't done it yet but I'm planning on going through and tagging some recipes with "busy week". That way I can just pull them all up at once throw them on the menu and be ready to go.

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I'm another  :thumbup:  for Plan To Eat. There are very few services I'll actually pay for in this world of free apps and downloads, and this is one of them. (The other is Spotify :lol:) I love how easy meal planning is, I love the shopping list, I love how quickly I can pull recipes into the database from other sites, and my absolute favorite part is that I can import my meal plans into my Google calendar. My whole life is on that Google calendar, so being able to add the meal plans there too is invaluable. 

 

I renew every year on Black Friday!

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For those of you who already use it, do you rotate the same meal plans for the most part or do you use quite a variety when your planning? It would be so easy to just rotate a few weeks worth of meals.

 

 

Most of the time I just drag and drop for the week, and eat what I want that week.  BUT, I do use the menu planner and have 2 summer meal plans, 2 winter meal plans, and a Thanksgiving meal plan that I have made.  So, if I am busy, and don't have time to drag and drop, I just pick whichever meal plan I want (based on summer or winter), and click, click, print, and run to the store with a weeks worth of meals on my grocery list.

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Thanks for the tip! I just signed up for the 30 day trial. I've started building a menu and have imported some recipes. It is exactly how I menu plan anyway, just doing lots of the work for me. I have a question for those of you who have used it for a while. What do you do about sides like steamed broccoli or diced raw peppers? I want them on my shopping list, but do I need to create a "recipe" for them in order to add them physically to my menu? Also I have many meals I don't need a recipe for - do you add those in detail or just a title to jog your memory? I know I'm overthinking this! Thanks for any input.

 

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Thanks for the tip! I just signed up for the 30 day trial. I've started building a menu and have imported some recipes. It is exactly how I menu plan anyway, just doing lots of the work for me. I have a question for those of you who have used it for a while. What do you do about sides like steamed broccoli or diced raw peppers? I want them on my shopping list, but do I need to create a "recipe" for them in order to add them physically to my menu? Also I have many meals I don't need a recipe for - do you add those in detail or just a title to jog your memory? I know I'm overthinking this! Thanks for any input.

 

I do make recipes for those kinds of things if I want them to appear on my shopping list. Just very simple ones though--I don't include measures or pictures or instructions, just ingredients. Often when I'm meal planning, I'm really planning dinners or special meals (like a breakfast casserole), and I'm planning breakfast/lunches/sides from things I need to use up or already have handy. In that case, I'll just add those things as notes in the meal plan. 

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Thanks! This looks interesting. I haven't signed up yet. I wasn't sure what device to sign up on. I am not very tech savy so is this an app for phone or tablet or do you use it on your pc and print the shopping list?

 

It's a web site. They don't have an app--instead, they opted to deploy a mobile site that can be used on any mobile device. So you only pay once and you can use it across all the platforms you have access to. I primarily use it on my Macbook, but I do use the shopping list on my Android phone when I'm shopping, I use the phone in the kitchen when I'm cooking to keep my recipe in front of me, etc. IMO, it's not as easy to use the planning feature on my phone. It's doable, but since I prefer to be at home with all my resources around me when I'm meal planning, that part doesn't matter much to me anyway.

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I went on my first shopping trip using Plan to Eat yesterday! It was great...I especially love that you can print out the "meal key" so you can see what ingredient goes to what meal if you need to. 

 

I am going to try to move the categories around so they correlate with the aisles at my store.  We did have to do some backtracking :)

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It's a web site. They don't have an app--instead, they opted to deploy a mobile site that can be used on any mobile device. So you only pay once and you can use it across all the platforms you have access to. I primarily use it on my Macbook, but I do use the shopping list on my Android phone when I'm shopping, I use the phone in the kitchen when I'm cooking to keep my recipe in front of me, etc. IMO, it's not as easy to use the planning feature on my phone. It's doable, but since I prefer to be at home with all my resources around me when I'm meal planning, that part doesn't matter much to me anyway.

Gotcha! Thanks!

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I've been using it since last year's sale and really like it too.

 

Thanks for the tip on saving a weekly plan for later. I didn't know that.

 

Anyone willing to friend me on Plan to Eat so we can share recipes? PM me if you are. My username is EKJ.

 

Erica in OR

 

:lol: I went on to friend you, and it turns out we're already friends! I'm melissel.

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I went on my first shopping trip using Plan to Eat yesterday! It was great...I especially love that you can print out the "meal key" so you can see what ingredient goes to what meal if you need to. 

 

I am going to try to move the categories around so they correlate with the aisles at my store.  We did have to do some backtracking :)

 

And if you shop at multiple stores, you can make a per-store shopping list and assign ingredients to the stores.  I have one for the warehouse club and one for the regular grocery store... because I've made the mistake of buying a bag of lemons when I actually only needed one before :)

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I signed up for the trial.  There were only a few sample recipes given.  Do they give you lists and plans each week or do you import your own from websites?  Is that how many recipes they give you each week? Are there options for dietary restrictions and preferences?

 

They just add the sample recipes so you can see how the meal plan & shopping list work. You can add all your own recipes; I get almost all of mine online anyway, so I just added the Plan to Eat button to my toolbar & it imports everything really nicely.

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Does plan to eat also have tons of good, easy, healthy recipes? 

 

You have to add your own recipes - but it is so easy to add recipes from the internet. While I love looking at cookbooks for inspiration, I still find the majority of the new dishes I make online.

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I've been using it since last year's sale and really like it too.

 

Thanks for the tip on saving a weekly plan for later. I didn't know that.

 

Anyone willing to friend me on Plan to Eat so we can share recipes? PM me if you are. My username is EKJ.

 

Erica in OR

 

 

:lol: I went on to friend you, and it turns out we're already friends! I'm melissel.

 

 

I'd love to see others' recipes! My username is ajfries :)

 

I have friended all of you!  I was supposed to be busy today but instead I'm looking at recipes.  Yum.

 

Over on the site I'm ..... aggieamy.  

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Is everyone using and liking the site?

 

NowWeAreFour - I made your vegetable hash tonight for dinner.  DH loved it.  Next time I'll plan ahead so I can get some ripe avocados to go with it.  

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With the discussion about it, I got motivated and planned out for next week. I think two of the recipes are from aggieamy and melissel—lentil tacos and Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana. Sounds like my 10-year-old son will take some convincing on the tacos, but I was intrigued. :)

 

Erica in OR

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With the discussion about it, I got motivated and planned out for next week. I think two of the recipes are from aggieamy and melissel—lentil tacos and Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana. Sounds like my 10-year-old son will take some convincing on the tacos, but I was intrigued. :)

 

Erica in OR

 

When you look at my planner can you see how I rated recipes?

 

The lentil tacos were a recipe that came from here!  My DH liked them but DD was undecided.  She did eat them loaded up with taco toppings and didn't complain though.  

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When you look at my planner can you see how I rated recipes?

 

The lentil tacos were a recipe that came from here!  My DH liked them but DD was undecided.  She did eat them loaded up with taco toppings and didn't complain though.  

 

I looked around a little, but I think all I can see is how many times it's been planned and when you added the recipe.

 

Erica in OR

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With the discussion about it, I got motivated and planned out for next week. I think two of the recipes are from aggieamy and melissel—lentil tacos and Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana. Sounds like my 10-year-old son will take some convincing on the tacos, but I was intrigued. :)

 

Erica in OR

 

Oh, that Zuppa Toscana is one of our favorite soups! Kung Fu Panda actually gave me that recipe. We've been avoiding potatoes for awhile, so I haven't been making it. But potatoes have pretty much made their way back in recently, so now would be a great time to add it to my meal plans :D

 

I don't know if my recipe or notes mention it, but KFP recommended using hot Italian sausage rather than sweet. All the heat cooks out of the sausage and goes a LONG way toward flavoring the rest of the soup. My youngest did think the soup was a bit too spicy, but when I tried it with sweet Italian instead, the flavor just wasn't the same. FWIW!

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I sent out a few friend emails so check your inboxes.  I'm aggieamy over there and would love to be online foodie friends if anyone doesn't want to post their username here but wants to send me an invite.  

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