Meal Planning Resources On the Net

By Elizabeth Wasserman

To get ready for a vacation week with family and friends, Sandy Shifrin not only packed her family's clothes and gear but she went on the Internet to plan meals. Each night, a different family would be responsible for feeding the whole gang. Not wanting to be outdone in the kitchen, the Norwalk, Conn. mother of two turned to the Internet before making out her shopping list.

Shifrin found a delicious paella recipe on epicurious, a CondeNet web site that features more than 20,000 recipes from Gourmet, Bon Appetit and Self magazines, along with party menus and a menu-planning tool. For dessert, Shifrin found what she was looking for -- blueberry cobbler -- on the Betty Crocker web site, which has a searchable recipe database and allows you to select such categories as "low fat" or "30 minutes or less."

For the adults, she wanted to make tasty sangria, so "I just Googled 'sangria'," Shifrin says. "I found everything from some Spanish woman in New Mexico who posted her favorite sangria recipe, to something published by a wine company."

Whether you're hosting a summer cocktail party, Thanksgiving dinner for the extended family or whipping up a last-minute dinner for four, like Shifrin you can now plan and save time by going online. On the web, you can search for recipes using ingredients you have in the fridge, find recipes with the shopping lists already made out, and order meals that will be delivered complete in microwave safe containers. You can even do your shopping -- there's no reason to drag the kids to the supermarket anymore.

"In the old days, pre-Internet, we'd go looking through magazines and books for recipes. Many women grew up with Betty Crocker and that was basically it," says Leanne Ely, a certified nutritional consultant and mom who runs Saving Dinner, a web site that features where you can subscribe to her email meal plan Menu-Mailer. "Now with the Internet, you can search all kinds of sites and it's given us a chance to expand our horizons."

Ready to leave your trusty, worn out cookbook and recipe index cards on the shelf? Follow these steps and from now on all you may have to do at dinner time is set the table:

1. Find recipes
The Food Network web site allows you to search your favorite TV chefs' recipes, including Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray. You can watch how-to videos and even get a grocery list for your favorite recipe sent to your wireless phone (depending on your provider). On the Martha Stewart web site, a section called Everyday Food features more simple recipes, suggested menus, and even a searchable database of what you can prepare with those tomatoes that just ripened in your backyard. Epicurious has a party planning section that gets down to not only what you should cook, but which wines or ales go best with a dish. Want to make that chicken you got on sale stretch all week? Check out Real Simple's Food section on their web site where you can search recipes by ingredient.

Also, don't miss out on the world of food blogs, where busy parents and budding gourmets share their tips and tastes. One popular site is 101cookbooks, where cookbook author Heidi Swanson tests out recipes, lists foodie blogs, and covers organic food trends and recipes on her sister site mightyfoods.

2. Get organized with meal-planning sites
If you want to save even more time, sites like the Nestle web site "Meals" let you plan a week's worth of menus at a time pulling from its database of 15,000 different recipes. Once you add recipes to your personal meal plans, you can also create an online grocery list with all the ingredients. Dinnerselect will email you family-friendly dinner menus every seven days that can be whipped up in under an hour for about a $1 per week subscription cost. For Ely's e-mailed Menu-Mailer, which starts at $9.95 for a three-month subscription, you can choose from a variety of different types of menus -- from heart-healthy to vegetarian to low-carb to frugal.

For those who have health concerns, the American Diabetes Association has a free Virtual Grocery Store web site that also offers up meal planning. With the click of a button, ingredients for recipes can be downloaded into a personal grocery shopping list to print out and take to the supermarket.

3. Go grocery shopping online
Once your meals are planned, you still have to hop in the car to do your shopping, right? Not if you hit one of the scores of 24/7 Internet groceries that will delivery of your groceries at a day and time that you choose.

Depending on where you live, you can try web sites such as Peapod. Or safeway lets you quickly search for a few express items or call up previous shopping lists to use as the basis for a new order.
Don't have time to visit one of those new franchises like Dream Dinners where you can assemble 12 meals at a time and freeze them? On the Dine Wise web site, you can choose a week's worth of recipes, pick out ingredients, and for $8 to $15 per meal, your dinners will arrive already prepared in microwave-safe containers within two to five business days. Dieting sites like Jenny Craig's web site or the Zone Diet offer similar meal-delivery services.

Savingdinner, on the other hand, will email you 22 recipes -- complete with shopping lists -- for $8.95 so you can assemble and freeze on your own.  "Now you have a backup plan," Ely says. "Dinner is always in the freezer when you're in a pinch."