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Monday, October 20, 2008

I am in love...


With recipe software.

Seriously. I love it.

I was sent an email that was offering MacGourmet at a discount price. So I downloaded a trial version and played around a bit. What I discovered is it does exactly what I have been doing by hand and wasting 5+ hours every week on. So once I plug in all my tried and true recipes it will take me like 10 minutes tops to do my weekly menu and maybe 20 minutes to do a monthly menu.

Not only will the software send my menu choices to my iCalendar software, but I have the option to print out more detailed weekly menus as well. Perfect for the front of fridge. I used to print out a blank calendar page from iCalendar and then handwrite my menu choices. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is when you change your mind as much as I do once I see it all spread out in front of me and realize I don't want to eat that much hamburger in a month. This will save a lot of paper and time. Oh, and there is a shopping list option that rocks my world. After I select my weekly menu, I can print out a shopping list that will let me know everything I need for my planned meals.

I also love the clipping option. I can copy a recipe I find on the internet and use the little clipping thing to turn it into a fully functioning recipe that I can import into my recipe library. That way I can put it in categories and be able to find it through ingredients, type of meal, etc.

The final bit of cool is the option to download recipes onto my ipod. That way I don't have to print out the recipe I plan to use for a meal. Since I am not cool enough to have a kitchen computer, I usually print out my recipes then put them into a binder once I am done with them. Seems reasonable enough. But this is even better. No paper to get all messy and then have to store. Just download my weekly recipes and grab my ipod.

All this and I am still learning the software. I am so geekily excited. I save so much money when I plan my month out ahead of time. I can then check the sale papers, and compare coupons and then don't get tempted by extra junk if I know exactly what we will be eating. But oh man, I HATE the time this takes. So happily, this little purchase will save me both time and money, which in my world equals SANITY. Yay!

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