Time Planner and Shopping List Creator
The Evening Inn Menu Planner lets you easily build up a menu for a meal, whole day of cooking or even a whole week. On the previous page we started to build a menu plan for a dinner party on Saturday.
With the actual meal planned out we can now start to work with the Time Planner and Shopping List Generator functions.
The time planner takes all of the recipes in your plan and looks at the steps required to make each one. It then works out when you need to start each part of the making process and lists them all out in order. For our dinner party menu…
So we know that we need to make a start on the Coq Au Vin at 6:50pm to get it on the table at the right time and then get the Pea Soup ready at 7:20pm while the Chicken is cooking. The page is designed for you to print out and use on the night.
So now its time to make sure you’ve got the ingredients you need. The shopping list tool lets you see exactly what you need for the whole menu, combining like ingredients so you know how much you need in total. All measurements can be customised to the units you like to use, or change them to the units you know you’ll have to use at the shops – no need for you to mess around converting by hand. Again the list is designed for printing.
So now we’re all set to go. But what if you get a phone call and John wants to bring a friend? No problem. The system lets you adjust times and servings or swap the dishes for new recipes, reworking the time plan and shopping lists at the click of a mouse button.
How it works...
(click any step for more info)
‘Hi there, I just wanted to write and say how impressed with your website I am. I’m planning a dinner party for 6 people on Saturday and I’ve been able to choose all the things I want to cook using your site. One brilliant thing is how you have links to ingredients that some might term as more unusual and the link takes you to a picture of the product so you know what you’re looking for if you’re shopping in the local supermarket. I will definitely be using your site again, thank you very much!’
Natasha Moffat-Taylor, Defra
‘Dear Alison, last night we went to our friends house for a meal that had been arranged a while ago. Now, we know about your website and expected our friend to cook something from it….what we didn’t expect was it to look exactly as it does in the photo of the recipe sheet!!! We had a fantastic meal, all three courses were absolutely delicious and added to that the fact that he’d supplied Tequila Sunrise cocktails (complete with umbrellas!) was just brilliant too! For the starter we had – Carnitas and the Hot Habernero Salsa (yum!), the main course was the Spiced Pork and Tortilla Layer with a green salad – this was so fantastic!! It’s not like anything we’d every had before and just so tasty!! And for dessert we had Iced Strawberry Margarita Pie. This was the perfect dessert for such a wonderful meal. I’m so impressed with the recipes that I’ve logged and registered as a member. Mark showed us the folder that he’s got for the recipes and the stand it goes on – what can I say – ingenious!! Keep up the good work and congratulations on a wonderful idea!
Best Wishes’
Paula Hampson, Stapenhill, Burton-on-Trent