*This is in no way a paid endorsement. (Wouldn’t that be nice?) I genuinely love this app and would suggest it to anyone that wants to improve their lives and manage their time.*
*If you want to purchase the app after my glowing review, it can be found under “Paprika Recipe Manager 3” in the App Store.*
When you have a busy life and loving family, every minute counts. That is why I initially downloaded a wonderful App: Paprika. Little did I know how much time and effort it would truly save me! Every week I would have to look through my recipe books or Pinterest, choose some meals, look through the list of ingredients, make my (paper) grocery list, and trek off to the grocery store. At least once a month I would forget my list and have to try and do the whole trip by memory.
I am going to show you step by step how Paprika works and why you NEED it in your life. The following are screen shots from my phone while using the app and I have included a brief explanation of how to use it. It may seem complicated, but once you have your recipes set up in your “Recipe box” it is literally as easy and picking which meals you want and creating your list.
The first step is to create your own “box” or list of recipes. I will admit that this is the longest part of this whole process, but once you have them in there you have them forever and you will never have to look through another book or Pinterest again. You can either write your own recipes in manually or you can save them from other web sites. The app is super clever because if you save a site and open the app, it will automatically ask you if you would like to create a recipe using that site. Below are pictures of the “save a recipe” page and my own personal “recipe book”.
The next step after you have created your recipes is to make your weekly (or monthly) meal plan. Now, keep in mind that you only set up your recipes once (you can always add more), so from this point on is how long it will take you per week to meal plan. The first shot is my finished meal plan for the week. This is what it will look like when you have added all of your recipes using the little “+” symbol, as seen in the upper right corner. You are able to either add a recipe from your “book”, add a note (for example, if you were going to eat out one night or if you are having something not in your recipe book such as hot dogs etc.), or add a whole menu that you have preplanned for the day. I generally only plan my dinners, but I wanted to show that you can get very detailed and plan for all three meals plus snacks!
The final step is to make your grocery list. You select the meals you need supplies for and select “Add to Grocery List”. My favorite part of this app is that it allows you to go through the ingredient list and remove things that you may already have in your pantry, as shown in the second picture. For example, if it calls for flour but you already have a bag, you can unselect that item. Once you have gone through and chosen your items, you click “Add” and you are done! Easy as pie! You are also able to manually add items to your grocery list like Toilet paper, cleaning supplies, paper plates, or anything you would need from the store, really.
I hope this has helped you to see how fun and easy meal planning can be, and I know that I am not the best at explaining things, but if you download the app I promise you will not be disappointed!
The Bauermeister Farm 