Oh man, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. I actually smacked myself on the forehead when I finished our meal planning this week.

All in about 15 minutes!

I’ve been wanting to eat healthier and stop buying food we really don’t need (the pantry seems to be bursting at the seams with totally random stuff. Black olives and peaches for dinner?)  but menu planning is such a pain in the neck.

I’ve tried systems and cookbooks and other stuff like you wouldn’t believe but they are so complicated and convoluted that they are impossible for me to keep up with.

So Saturday as I was doing the weekly meal planning and searching favorite blogs like Skinny Taste for inspiration I copied the url and posted it into my Google calendar. I figure that way when it is time to make dinner I can just go to the calendar and click on the link.

I actually have to click on the event in the calendar, which opens the event and then click on the link. 

And then the recipe is RIGHT THERE!

And that lead to the next step.

I copied the ingredients I knew (or thought) I didn’t have in the house to my shopping app (Out of Milk).

Now I’m all ready to go get groceries for the week! 

I did an initial “shop” in the kitchen to make sure I don’t already have some of the items.

I also checked out the weather app on my phone before starting – knowing that it is still going to be fairly cool this week helped me plan for soups and casseroles.

Here is why this is so great:

• The recipe is on my calendar so when I look at my day the night before/morning of I can see what is for dinner right away. In enough time to take meat out of the freezer.
• Bloggers LIVE for clicks. Every time I click over to that recipe the bloggers I love to support get another click.
• My husband and I share the calendar so he has no reason to not start dinner if I’m not home or working late.
• We aren’t buying food we aren’t going to use
• I put pizza on the menu on Friday and I can use up any leftover meats and veggies on a pizza – or accompanying salad
• I’m hoping this will cut down drastically on food waste.
• It’s easy to plan healthy recipes because the web is FULL OF THEM
• I can post the recipes I like most to a Pinterst board and go back to them later.
• My husband and I share an account on the shopping app so either of us can shop
• It’s so easy to plan ahead! I can just paste the url into the calendar on ANY DATE and then start a shopping list for that week. BOOM!
• I’m working in the calendar the whole time so if I have an extra busy week I can easily plan quick meals. Hello slow cooker!

I just can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier!