Menu-Planning Made Easy! (Plan to Eat Review & Giveaway)
By Jessica Smartt, Contributing Writer
Maybe you’re like me, and the Plan to Eat logo is a familiar friendly ad from your visits here to Keeper of the Home. I’ve been curious what Plan to Eat is actually about, and jumped at the chance to review it.
I was pleasantly surprised!
I knew Plan to Eat was a digital meal-planning site (pretty smart of me to figure that out from the title) but to be honest, I had a few reservations.
Even though I’m a blogger, I’m not a natural computer whiz. It takes me some time (and gives me a headache) to do anything new online, since nothing comes easily.
I was shocked at how user-friendly the Plan to Eat site is. It’s almost … fun.
For one thing, adding all of your recipes to the site is a lot easier than I imagined. If the website is a “major” recipe site (Allrecipes, Food Network, Epicurious, and a few others) the recipe actually imports itself. One click from your toolbar, and boom. There are the ingredients!
If the website is a foodie blog or smaller site, it’s still easy. You manually enter ingredients by copying and pasting into the Plan to Eat recipe box. Even this “longer” step takes less than a minute. And if you’re like me, you make the same 20 to 30 meals over and over. Once it’s in the site, it’s there!
Then comes the really fun party … the meal planning.
Normally, I sit with my spiral notebook, straining my brain to remember our favorite recipes, digging through the same recipe sites and copying down the same ingredients.
With Plan to Eat, you literally just drag a meal from your recipe box to the day of the week you plan to eat it. Like I said … almost fun.
From there, you can make a shopping list, also insanely easier than what I’ve been doing. The shopping list is organized by aisle according to your favorite store.
From there, you can either print your shopping list, or view from your mobile device. No more scribbled-out, illegible lists on crumpled paper. Just view it on your phone, and even check off items as you go.
What’s the bottom line?
Yes, there is some upfront work involved to set up your recipe box. But in the long run, you save so much time and mental energy. These are golden commodities to moms, of course.
I feel that for a busy mom (and what mom isn’t?) who cooks nourishing meals at home and wants to streamline the time it takes to plan meals and make a grocery list, Plan to Eat is basically a no-brainer.
If you’re fond of your spiral-notebook system (like I was) and skeptical that you’d use Plan to Eat, you’re in luck. Plan to Eat offers a free 30-day trial to all. You have full capabilities to fiddle and plan for a whole month’s meals.
