It's no secret that I love to bake.  It is my stress relief.  It is my joy.  It is my passion.  A freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies goes a long way to healing my soul.  Trying new recipes makes me giddy.  My children also enjoy helping me bake up something yummy.  My younger two even have their own "love jar" to use when helping out in the kitchen.  What is a love jar you ask?  Well, I have always told the kids that the secret ingredient in all of my baking is love.  I little hokey, I know, but serving up homemade goodies to friends and family is my love language.  A couple of years ago my son, Jake, found an empty jar and deemed it his love jar.  He opened it up and blew kisses into it and closed it right back.  Whenever we are baking up some yummy goodness he grabs his jar and pours out the love into the bowl.  He fills it back up with kisses and puts it back on my baking shelf, ready to go into the next recipe.  Not to be left out, Melia, had to fashion her own love jar.  I love how she and Jake take delight in pouring "love" into whatever we are baking.  I hope they always remember to add "love" to whatever they do.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention my oldest child, Cameron.  Though he never felt the need to have his own love jar, he prides himself as my official taste tester!

Cooking is a whole different ballgame for me.  I could bake sweets all day, every day and never tire of it.  Coming up with a variety of wholesome yet tasty meals for my family intimidates me.  In the past, I have tried to plan meals for a week or two at a time.  While it was very helpful to know what I would be making each day, it took FOREVER to come up with the menu and find the recipes and write out a grocery list.  Sometimes I would lose the paper that I had written down what we were having each night and then I would be left with ingredients that I had purchased and not a clue as to what they were going to turn into!  This frustrated me to no end.



Enter Plan To Eat.  I came across this site on someone's Facebook post and it intrigued me.  On the site's home page it says "Eating at home should be easier".  Oh how I agree with that!  You are able to try out this site free for 30 days.  Then it is $4.95 a month or $39 a year.  I decided to try it out for a month and see if I would actually use it for more than a week, which is typically when I give up on whatever menu planning method I am trying at the moment.

Once you sign up you are able to start uploading, organizing and sharing recipes.  I love looking for new recipes and I have created a folder on my computer called "recipes to try".  At last count, there were 170 recipes in that folder.  170!  How many have I actually tried?  Maybe around 10.  When it comes time to plan out our meals, I just don't want to bother with that huge, disorganized folder so I don't.  But I know there are some great recipes in there.  One cool thing that Plan To Eat offers is the ability to instantly upload recipes from sites such as Allrecipes.com, which is one of my very favorite sites!  You can put a button up on your toolbar that you click on once you find a recipe that you'd like to save on Plan To Eat.  You are not able to do this with recipes that are on people's blogs but there is a pretty easy way to copy and paste the recipe into Plan To Eat.  You can also type in your own recipes.  The nice thing about taking the time to do this is that once you do it, the recipe will always be there.  You are able to organize your recipes according to different categories and types of cuisine.  Another cool feature is the ability to share recipes with friends.  I have a friend who is also trying out Plan To Eat and we are able to see each others recipes and add them to our own.  This is nice, especially since I do not have to bug this friend every time I would like one of her delicious recipes!

Once you have some recipes stored you can start planning your meals.  On the planner page, your recipes are on the left and a calendar is on the right.  You may plan for any length of time but I like to plan one week at a time right now.  Maybe someday I'll graduate up to two weeks at a time...baby steps....  Want your favorite chicken casserole on Tuesday night?  Just click it on the left and drag it over to Tuesday.  Want to try out that new recipe for homemade pizza this Friday.  Click and drag.  That's it.  It is actually kind of fun! 

Once you have your meals planned then you go to the shopping list page.  Like magic, there are all the ingredients you will need for the meals you just planned!  You can easily remove items that you already have.  I really like how, on the shopping list, there is a recipe key.  Next to each ingredient on the shopping list is a letter that corresponds to the recipe(s) that this ingredient is used in.  This came in handy recently when I had planned to make a pasta salad for the 4th of July but ended up not having enough time to make it.  I was able to mark off those ingredients when I went grocery shopping and didn't end up with some random things that I didn't necessarily need.  There is also a separate list of staple items, such as bread, milk, shampoo and cereal, that you can use for other household items needed from the store.

I have used Plan To Eat for three weeks now and have successfully planned, shopped for and made three weeks of meals with ease.  Plan To Eat has really made the menu planning part of my job so much easier.  I talked it over with my sweet husband last night and we agreed that we are going to continue on with Plan To Eat once my 30 day trial is over.  I think he is enjoying having decent meals each night and not having to resort to sandwiches or cereal because I don't know what else to make that night!

I feel like I need to add that I am not in any way affiliated with Plan To Eat nor am I receiving any form of payment for this post (although that would be nice!).  I know how hard it is to plan meals for your family, day after day, year after year.  I just wanted to share this cool resource that has made my life easier.  Who doesn't need that?