One thing I really love is my iPad 2. One thing I’m really bad at is meal planning. I am just not one of those people who can throw open her pantry and plan a meal with the random ingredients inside. In fact, I start having heart palpitations when I realize we’re out of mac ‘n cheese.
I’ve tried various meal planning schemes, subscriptions and plans. But mostly I end up staring at my empty fridge wondering when the magic grocery fairy is going to re-stock the provisions. (The magic grocery fairy happens to be my husband, who isn’t any better at meal planning than me. *snork*)
However, things may hopefully be looking up for me! Instead of wandering aimlessly around the grocery hoping ingredients for actual meals will hop into my cart, I will now be able to carry actual meal plans, recipes and (*gasp*) a shopping list with my at the store!
I ran across a neat meal planning app called Pepperplate. Not only is it really well thought out, but it’s also F.R.E.E. (can you hear the angels singing?) You also don’t have to have access to the web in order to use the app. Which is super important to me because I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad with 3G anything.
Some of my favorite features include:
1. Being able to add recipes from several major food websites. And with the help of a bookmarklet you can also add recipes from other website like blogs. Not to mention being able to manually enter in your own recipes. And did I mention you can do this from Pepperplate website? Yay! So much easier than trying to do it from within the app.
2. You can arrange your recipes into meal plans, and add those meal plans to your meal calendar. Then you can add your choices to your shopping list when you’re ready to hit the store! There is a way to arrange the list to shop by aisle, but my grocery store changes things so often I’m lucky if I remember where the front door is.
3. When you are ready to cook, the app has a handy timer build right in. You can cook several recipes at once and set a timer for each one. Plus in “Cook Mode” it keeps the iPad screen from dimming, making it much easier to see the next step.
There area really so many features, you have to check out the website for all of them. You can also read user reviews at the Apple app store.
Your turn: Do you use your iPad (Android, etc.) to help you in the kitchen? If so, how do you protect it from cooking splatters? Any other meal planning hints or tips you’d like to share? If so, leave them in the comments!
