Here is my menu plan for the week of Monday 23.1.12 to 29.1.12.

I have started using the new menu saving, recipe saving, grocery saving, software from zip list.  How fantastic,  something this awesome,  when it comes to saving time with organizing what’s for dinner, recipe storage, shopping lists, and help with shopping, is available to us for free.  Thanks to the wonderful people from Zip List, you guys truly are making organizing dinner much easier for all of us.

So  here’s my menu plan, can’t wait to hear about yours, in the comments, or through joining our summertime blog hop.

Meals Monday to Sunday

Monday

• 20 Minute Chicken & Rice Stir Fry (3)
  Kraft

Tuesday

• Caramelised Soy Pork Tenderloin (5)
  Food.com

Wednesday

• Waffles (2)  Bacon, Eggs and Baked Beans
  Food.com

Thursday

• Chicken Scallopine With Saffron Cream Sauce (7)
  The Food Network

Friday

• Classic Beef Stroganoff (7)
  Unknown

Saturday

• Classic Cabbage Rolls Recipe (6)
  Taste of Home

Sunday

• Beef Enchilada Bake (5)
  Food.com

I have copied and pasted my menu selection from my zip box, the menu plan is set out a lot nicer in the application.  I’ll include a picture for you shortly,  where you can see the eg: Food.com,  underneath my meal selection, that is a link to the recipe, and the site, which I have chosen the recipe from.  If I was checking my menu plan on my iphone or my computer, and I needed the recipe for one of the selections, I just double click on the link and the recipe comes up.

Summertime menu plan

Grocery List Template

Next I have copied and pasted a part of my grocery list template, from the Zip List, page where my grocery list is displayed.  While you are selecting your recipe’s, you are also making up the grocery list.  It is done for you automatically.  Organizing Meals, has never been easier.  If you want to de-select an item because you already have it, you do it at this time.  Once complete you can still edit your list.  It also allows you to organize your grocery list template in a way that you can edit the ingredients that you have selected.  Eg: the recipe might say 1lb of Coon Tasty Cheese, but you might decide you’d rather have Kraft Light Cheese and that you only need a half pound.  That’s fine, Zip List allows you to do that too.  In the end your grocery list template is organized exactly how you want it to be.  This is part of my grocery list for my menu above.  Again it is set out more attractively in the computer application and the Iphone application, and this is just the way it set itself out from my copying and pasting.

• Dairy

  •   1 cup heavy cream

• Condiments, Dressings & Oils

  • 1 cup of honey
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil

Organizing Grocery List Templates

Zip List also allows you to make up and store other grocery list templates.  You can actually organize a grocery template for your other weekly shopping.  Not only for the other products you need from your super market, but for any type of shopping you need a reminder to do.  You can add the items to your one list which has already been made for your weeks dinners or, you can make a new list, I called mine, regular weekly shopping list.  Here I listed all the items I buy every week.  I added a section also called miscellaneous, which is for one off type items.  If I wanted I could of made another list called for example one off purchases, and added any of the one off items I was needing to that list.  Zip List allows you to store as many different shopping lists as you might require.  They even have organized templates for you, which of course you can edit,  that include lists for camping,  back to school items all types of different shopping lists.

zip list on itunes

Organizing Dinner and the Shopping List

All up it only took about twenty minutes to set up the whole system.  Next time i’m certain it will be a much quicker exercise because my zip list recipe box is already set up and my regular grocery list has already been added.  What a great idea and this really does make organizing what’s for dinner fun instead of a chore.  You can print your lists out if you don’t have a iphone or an android phone.  So what are you waiting for.  Follow the link to Zip List, open an account and away you go.  Don’t forget to call back and let us know what’s on the menu at your place next week.  If your a blogger, join our blog hop by adding a link to your menu plan for next Monday.

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Bonus Recipe

"Navajo Tacos"