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Planning the week

Put a recipe against each day, then turn the whole week into one shop.

The planner has two tabs, and it opens on the wrong one. Meal Planner shows the plan. Edit is where you change it. If you are hunting for a way to add something and there isn’t one, you are on the first tab. Press Edit.

Finding it

  1. Open the menu — the three stacked lines in the top-left corner, on the green bar.
  2. Press Meal Planner.
  3. You get the days laid out side by side, today first. The blue button at the top showing two dates is the stretch of time being shown; press it if you want to look further ahead.

Putting a meal on a day

  1. Press the Edit tab, just below that date button.
  2. Each day is its own column, or its own block if you’re on a phone. Find the day you want.
  3. At the bottom of that day there is a small row of buttons. The last one is a + for New. Press it.
  4. A box opens. Start typing a recipe name in Meal Recipe and pick it from the suggestions that appear.
  5. Above that, set which meal it is — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and so on. Dinner is the usual answer.
  6. Press the green Create button.

There is a quicker way in from the other direction: open a recipe, press the three dots stacked on top of each other among the round blue buttons under its picture, and choose Add to Plan. Pick a date off the calendar and confirm.

Nights you’re not cooking

Out on Friday, or having a takeaway? In that same box, turn on the Note Only switch. The recipe box is replaced by a Meal Title and a note, so you can write Out at Sue’s and have the day accounted for. It won’t add anything to your shopping.

Can’t decide

Those other buttons at the bottom of each day pick something for you out of your own recipes. The dice is any meal at all, the saucepan is Random Dinner, and the bowl is Random Side. Press one and it drops a recipe onto that day. Don’t like it? Remove it with the bin button on the card and press again.

Changing your mind

Turning the plan into a shop

This is the reason to bother with any of it.

  1. Go back to the Meal Planner tab.
  2. Press Add All to List, the blue button over on the right, level with the tabs.
  3. Choose which shopping list to add to.
  4. Everything from every recipe on show arrives as one tick list. Untick whatever you already have, then press Add to List.

For a single day instead of the lot, press the three dots beside that day’s date and choose Add Day to List.

It only covers the dates on screen. Add All to List means all of what you can see, which normally starts at today. Check the date button at the top before you press it, or you may shop for days that have already been and gone.
One plan for the household. Everyone in the house shares it, and everyone can change it. A meal you didn’t put there was put there by somebody else.

Related: shopping lists →