Please tell me about your meal planning / recipe storage and inspiration apps

[Laughteronthewing]

Meals ideas have ground to a bit of a halt in my kitchen and we seem to be rotating the same few dull dishes.

Now and again I get inspired and list out a load of new dishes, then forget where the recipes were kept (usually online, in one of my many books or from a magazine) and then don’t seem to get round to cooking them again after the first go.

I have a new I-pad and thought that I could use it to coordinate a shopping list, meal plan and then put it on a cook book stand in the kitchen. TIA!

[Imchlibob]

Following! I'd love an app that stores recipies and calculates a shopping list and tells us what meals we have the ingredients for.

[NancyBlackettsRedCap]

I love Paprika on my iPad. The best thing is that you can browse recipes on Safari, and then just share then to Paprika - instantly saved recipe.

[EmmaSwann]

Nancy - Paprika is £4.99. Would you say it's worth the money?

(Sorry for jumping on your thread, OP..)

[Laughteronthewing]

I looked at Yummly but the adverts were really annoying, I’m guessing that at £4.99 Paprika is add free?

I’ve also got the Readly magazine app, for £7.99 pm, I’m currently trawling the food magazines for ideas. It seems like a good plan as there are a lot of in season recipes and so far I’ve dipped into about 3 magazines (I haven’t even started on the non food magazines).

[NancyBlackettsRedCap]

Definitely worth it. And ad free. I have it on my iPhone & Mac and all the recipes sync between them.

[NancyBlackettsRedCap]

Must admit I just do recipes though - haven't looked at the meal plan / shopping list side of it.

[WhenDoISleep]

Jumping on to ask those of you who use an app - can you take a photo of a recipe in a magazine and 'file' it in various categories, as say chicken main course, cake, dessert etc.

I have a lot of recipes bookmarked online, but my biggest issue is hundreds of foodie magazines and various torn out recipes from other magazines. I'd love an app where I could store and organise them all.

[NancyBlackettsRedCap]

No, you can't directly file photos / scans in Paprika. A better thing might be to OCR the text, then import it into the app - then all the database fields such as ingredients, method, servings etc would be correct.

[Guiloak]

Copy Me That is a free app you can save internet recipes and take photos of existing recipes and tag them

[LadyMonicaBaddingham]

'Food Planner' could be your new BFF. I've been using it for ages and it's great, you can store recipes, meal plans and shopping lists. There are ads in the free version, but it's not too costly to upgrade to 'Pro' and get rid if you do like it.

[LaLaLolly]

I use Evernote.

You can take photos directly on the app, it recognises text on photos, upload files, you can organise it easily, use tags and keywords, you can share... It's free and it syncs with every device.

[Laughteronthewing]

I looked for Food planner and couldn't find it...I'll try again later.

I did wonder about using Evernote LaLaLolly , or one note as I have a Microsoft subscription. It does mean getting to grips with learning how to use it! I'm sure it's easy once you get going.

[NancyBlackettsRedCap]

The trouble with the Evernote kind of solution is that you don't have any of the functionality of a proper recipe app - meal planning, shopping lists, scaling and so on.

And isn't it a monthly cost now? Would end up more expensive than a dedicated app too, unless you were already a subscriber.

[LaLaLolly]

Well if you have OneNote it could be truly worth learning how to use it, OP

You can absolutely use it for shopping lists with tick boxes, next to tables divided by days/meals/ingredients and pictures and recipes all in the same page/notebook.

It's one of the most versatile systems out there, I find.

[LaLaLolly]

Nancy I still use Evernote for free.

I see your point about scaling recipes though, that you would be useful.

[Dietcokeobsession]

The Tasty app by Buzzfeed is pretty good

[TaleOfTheContinents]

I used Pepperplate (pepperplate.com/) and really like it. I use it on my laptop but they have an app version as well. No picture/file upload function though.

[SlippyPavements]

Another vote for free app, "Copy me that". It's handy for keeping internet recipes in one place. You can add your own notes, tags, create meal plans & shopping lists and lots more too probably!

[FoodologistGirl]

Hi I have a blog called EatNotSpend that has loads of money saving recipes, meal plans and priced up shopping lists. All you do is choose how many it's for (4/2/1) and your dietary need (GF, Vegan, veggie or meat) and look up a weeks worth of recipes with the shopping list for the week. I even made a few cooking videos to show how easy some of the recipes are. I'm always adding more when I get time. Feel free to take a browse for inspiration

[Isabe11e]

I use MyMeals365, which is great for storing recipes. You find the recipe you want on the internet and save it in a couple of clicks. It sort of extracts the recipe from the website into the app. Really cool. Haven't tried any other apps but this one pretty much does it what I need. It's free.

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mymeals365.recipe&hl=en_GB

[Nearlyoldenoughtowearpurple]

Another vote for paprika, it’s so worth the money. Have used it for years, have hundreds of recipes saved and use it more than all my books out together.
I have copy me that as well but paprika is better

[Mominatrix]

I get inspiration from:

• Serious Eats www.seriouseats.com. A great site with recipes which are tested rigorously and with good explainatinos on why they work.
  

• New York Times cooking.nytimes.com. They do a great what to cook this week and what to cook this weekend. I do have a subscription to the times.
  

• Leites Culinaria: leitesculinaria.com
  

• and some blogs: I am a food blog iamafoodblog.com, smitten smittenkitchen.com, David Lebovitz www.davidlebovitz.com
  

• I also regularly peruse through Ina Garten's site barefootcontessa.com because she is my food personality crush.

[OhioOhioOhio]

Pinterest is also good.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

I’m very old school: I have a nice ring binder that I use to store recipes I have printed out, or indeed invented myself by trial and error. Also family favourites that I know by heart but the kids wanted idiots’ guides to when they were first learning to cook and things my mum and gran have written down for me.

I do my meal planning in my journal: roughly three meat, three veggie and one fish dinners a week. The meat is often a joint rolled over for a couple of days. I find it very helpful to look at what we’ve eaten in the past.

[RichTea432]

I saw paprika on another thread and it looked amazing. It is £4.99 but apparently worth it