Some months I vary more from them than others. The last plan wasn’t hitting the spot right with how it fitted in with my time commitments and the kid’s activities. So while I cooked about 95% of the meals on the plan, I did vary the order quite a bit. This is one of the things I like most about menu planning, in that it gives me options. I have all the ingredients for the meals, I can easily change the day I cook it to meet my needs.

I have changed the structure of the menu plans for the week this month, based on what was working for me in reality over the last couple of weeks. Changes include cooking a double batch meal on Mondays to cater for left overs. Many recipes used to easily give us left overs, but as the kids are growing up, there is less and less left over. So I need to start increasing the quantity of the ingredients, to factor in left overs. (For the menu plans in this post though, I only added one quantity of the meal.)

The Weekly Menu Plans

When you create the menu plans in the app, a shopping list is then created. You can then either use the shopping list directly on your iPhone and check off the items you have, or you can email the list to yourself or someone else.

The app plans Monday to Sunday at the moment and I plan from Saturday to Friday, so Monday in this plan is really Saturday for us and so on.

I have pasted the contents of the shopping list emails into word docs, turned them into PDFs and zipped them together, so they can be easily downloaded. Or you can purchase the App from iTunes and make your own!

Planning With Kids Weekly MenuPlans – May/June

What changes have you made menu planning as your family has grown?

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Menu Planning – May/June Weekly Menu Plans is a post from: Planning With Kids

• Ability to add own recipes
• Search function to choose meals
• Ability to save menu plans

We are certainly working towards these and I will keep you updated on progress.

Today I am sharing five weeks worth of plans which I have created using the menu planner app. Term 2 starts on Monday and I want to kick of the new term planned and organised!

The plans contain evening meals for six days of the week – I almost always try and factor in one night a week, where we will have left overs so I have a night off cooking.

The app plans Monday to Sunday at the moment and I plan from Saturday to Friday, so Monday in this plan is really Saturday for us and so on.

When you create the menu plans in the app, a shopping list is then created. You can then either use the shopping list directly on your iPhone and check off the items you have, or you can email the list to yourself or someone else.

I have pasted the contents of the shopping list emails into word docs, turned them into PDFs and zipped them together, so they can be easily downloaded. Or you can purchase the App from iTunes and make your own!

Planning With Kids April May Menu Plans

Have you been getting organised for the new school term too?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Menu Planning – April/May Weekly Menu Plans is a post from: Planning With Kids

It’s here at last! The Planning With Kids Menu Planner App is now available in iTunes ($0.99).

Well it has actually been there for a week or so waiting for the new blog design to make its appearance, but due the techno issues noted at the start of the week, the new design is not yet up and running.

So rather than make you wait, not only can you check out the menu planner app, but you can also get a sneak peak of what the new blog design will look like!

Thanks to the wonderful team at Ventiv who developed the App and made it look so good. They are an absolute pleasure to work with.

The Menu Planner App will make menu planning for your family super easy! It is very intuitive and includes over 100 of the most popular recipes from the blog and more will be added on a weekly basis. The app will notify you when new recipes have been added, so you will be able to deliver plenty of variety in your family’s menu plans.

What does the Menu Planner App do?

It allows you to:

• Create weekly menu plans quickly, choosing as many meals per day as you would like to plan for.
• Generate the shopping list for all the meals selected.
• Modify the shopping list to check off items you already have at home.
• Email the shopping list to yourself and/or others.

Each recipe lists the ingredients required, easy to follow instructions and photos from the blog.

You can see a full range of screen shots and instructions on the Planning With Kids Menu Planner App page, or head straight to iTunes and buy it!

What’s next?

There are so many things you could possibly include in a menu planner app and we have aimed to keep it functional, simple to use and efficient. There are already things I have added to the “nice to have” list for the next version update, like starting my plan on a different day other than Monday (I just plan as if Mon is Sat, Tues is Sun, Wed is Mon etc and then write those days on the shopping list plan when I print it out to stick up on the fridge.)

So there maybe things you would like to see in the app and we would like to hear about them! The great thing about apps is they are so easy to update and push out new versions.

If we find there is an overwhelming need for a particular function we will investigate the possibility of including it in the next update. You can leave a comment below or email me at nicole@planningwithkids.com with your feedback.

Will it be on Android? Will it be on iPad? We would love the app to be able to go across all mobile devices, but at this point we are concentrating on the listening to the feedback from users on the iPhone app and making it the best Menu Planner App it can be. Once we have this sorted we will look at other platforms.

Can I Add My Own Meals or Ingredients to the App?

EDIT: Lots of people have emailed about this function, so have added my response here as well!

I would like to see this too. Compared to the rest of the app this is a complex addition, but as we wanted to get the app out sooner rather than later, we have released it without this function. We are working to add this functionality as soon as possible.

Free Menu Planner on the Blog

The blog free menu planner will still be up and running. It is very much in need of a recipe update and I will be doing that in April and will let you know when that has happened.

Review on iTunes

If you test out the Menu Planner App and like it, we would love it if you would take a few minutes to add a review on iTunes. Reviews on iTunes are a great way to recommend and promote the app – they can make a big difference to how well the app sells.

Tell your friends about it!

Getting the word out about the app is my next challenge. I would love it if you, the fabulous readers of Planning With Kids would tell your friends about the app. The blog now has in excess of 3,800 subscribers. If each subscriber told just three of their friends about the app, that would be at least 11,400 people who would know about it – that would be so awesome!

Thanks for all the encouragement along the way with my recipes and through out the development of the app. It feels great to have it out in the market place and I look forward to hearing what you think about it.

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Planning With Kids Menu Planner App Is Now Available! is a post from: Planning With Kids