# Meal Planner - Recipe Book - Grocery List



## vancouverdave (Dec 14, 2008)

I have been looking for a Meal Planning App that generates ordered shopping lists from built in and user created recipes.

We have two small children, so every minute counts. Missing something on a shopping trip really hurts.

My poor wife has been preparing weekly meal-plans, and then generating grocery lists from the recipes… 

…By Hand

I try to do the shopping, but would like to help-out with the meal planning. I am a computer guy, so of course I think there has to be a better way. 

It turns out there are sooo many ways, so where to start?

Well, here my needs:

Able to easily choose recipes for the next week or two (Meal Plan)
Able to enter my own (personal) recipes (or at least titles and ingredients) from copyrighted material (i.e. for my own use)
Able to generate an ‘ordered’ grocery list – i.e. a list that has ingredients grouped by grocery store 'isle'
Able to add other items to the list (not from recipes)
Able to cross items off the list as I shop (iPhone App)
Able to share between computer, and two iphones
Everything else is a perk

So far I have looked at the following Apps. ‘Chef’ seems simple, but satisfies all the above the best ('+' is good. '-' is bad):

Chef
+ can enter private recipes
+ shopping list auto-groups nicely
+ simple but effective interface on iPhone and Web
+ lots of recipes online (I think)


What's for dinner
+ ordered shopping list
+ includes other site-sources like AllRecipes
- no web interface? - import recipes using clipboard I think

AllRecipes
+ nice iPhone interface
+ large user community
+ multiple grocery lists
- ‘personal recipe’ ingredients appear un-grouped at bottom of grocery list


BigOven
+ grocery list auto-groups nicely
+iPad app looks nice
+ large user community
+ Try Soon list
+ LeftOver helper
- iPhone App is a bad (ugly web-mobile with small font on shopping list)


RecipeHolder
- no grocery list

ShopNcook
- no grocery list?

Jamie Oliver
+ nice interface
+ Jamie’s Recipes
- only 60 recipes
- no personal recipes


EPI
+ nice interface
+ includes recipes from cookbooks including some jamie oliver (hey, we like this guy)
- no personal recipes


Shopper
- no meal planning or recipes

MealBoard
- no webapp

MacGourmet
- no WebApp (shrinkwrap app)


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## fellfromtree (May 18, 2005)

Did you check out SousChef? (was in the the last MacHeist, I'm sure some here have it. I have it but have never used it)
It has an ingredient substitute (for those items you missed), and it will find recipes based on what you have on hand.
Cloud based user database.

SousChef for Mac: Your Cooking Assistant (Acacia Tree Software)


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## vancouverdave (Dec 14, 2008)

Thank you. So far "Chef" is still king.


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