my favorite menu planning tool + slow cooker rosemary roast

I recently mentioned my foodness for a new meal planning site called PlantoEat. Here's just one of the reasons why:

No, the site didn't deliver the dish, nor was it the source of the recipe. But it's wonderfully simple, yet powerful platform for recipe organization and integrated shopping lists have meant meals like this were easily planned and purchased without multiple trips to the grocery store, lost shopping lists or moments of "Oh, I forgot to get the carrots!)

(I learned about the site when Real Mom Nutrition mentioned it on Facebook. Thank you Sally!)

There are loads of good menu planning sites out there, some that will even offer you pre-planned menus (check out eMeals. The folks over there are super nice and they really do have a lot of good menu choices.) MyRecipes - one of my all time favorite sources for recipes - also offers a "Save to Shopping List Function", which helps if you're like me and like to have a digital record of what you need from the grocery store.

But the limitations with most sites are either that they don't have a powerful shopping list function that allows you to easily sort/add or they don't allow for you to add recipes from other sources not affiliated with their site.

PlantoEat does away with all of those obstacles. I'm still discovering all of the things it can do, but here are the things I like so far:

• I can plan my menu in a drag-and-drop calendar style format. I'm a very visual person and need to see things laid out by week & month, not just day and be able to move things around as I see how it's all shaping up.
• I can "clip" recipes from most anywhere on the Web into my own Recipe Queue or Planner, which is automatically in sync with my shopping list. (You know how you Pin all of those recipes and never go back and cook them? With PlantoEat you can basically import them into your Queue and they'll be at the ready for you to drag & drop into whatever month/day you want to cook them.)
• Once you plan out a week, you can save it as a "menu" and then slot that entire menu in for another week in the future. No more re-creating work over and over. And if you decide this week you actually don't want mashed potatoes with roast and you'd rather have rice instead, it's very easy to remove menu items and drag new ones in.
• When you get ready to access your shopping list, you can view (or print) it for whatever days you need (you can also view it on the go on their mobile site which works really well & allows you to check things off the list as you go.) So if you know you're going back to the store 2 or 3 days later and don't want the entire week's shopping list, it will generate a list just for what you need. Or if you shop 2 weeks at a time, you can pull the shopping list for that time, too. It's up to you.
• AND... you can add to the list all the odds & ends that don't show up on the menu. I use it to add all the "stuff" I need for business recipe testing, too. No more sticky notes & lists to lose. You can even add items to a "staples" list and drop them in whenever you need them.
• Lastly, you can customize the shopping list template for the way you shop or how your store is arranged. For instance, in my Publix, cheese is one of the first areas you access and it's separate from milk and yogurt. So I actually have a category for cheese and a category for milk and yogurt, rather than just a "dairy" category. And I have the cheese category much higher in the list order because that's where I access it in the store. 

So what's the catch?

Well, it's not free. But it's less than $40 for a year's membership... which is obviously less than $1 per day. 

Really organized people who have a little time to sit down and plan their own system probably could do all of this with a service like PlantoEat and do it for free. But I'm not a really organized person. And I'm busy, very busy. (Who isn't right? In fact, I've reached that busy point that you wakes up in the middle of the night wondering if you have clean underwear for the morning. But as my Dad reminds me, much of this is self-inflicted busyness, so I'll stop complaining.) 

Regardless of the origin of my busyness, the one thing I don't like to can't let suffer is my kitchen. I have mouths to feed and a business to run. Most of it happens in a concentric pattern around what's going on in this kitchen, really. And I think less than $1 a day is well worth the functionality it adds to my life.

Now, if you're wondering what kind of deal I've worked out with the folks over at PlantoEat to make such a strong recommendation, I haven't.

Seriously. Nothing.

I sent them an email just to say how much I liked the site and that I'd love to see an app version soon (which I believe may be in the works). But other than that, I have no connection with them. My opinions are 100% my own. 

If you're in need of a good kitchen/shopping/recipe management tool, please check it out. I think you will be very pleased. You can even try it out for 30 days before paying the fee. (I tried it for ~7 days and was hooked!)

Or, if you've already got a great system, let me know about it, too!

Oh... and enjoy the recipe :) 

Slow Cooker Rosemary Roast

by Regan @ The Professional Palate

based off Cooking Light's Beef with Carrots, Onions & Dried Plums

6041500

Ingredients

• 1 (2 1/2-pound) blade or chuck roast
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup baby carrots
• 2 rosemary sprigs
• 2 sage sprigs
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup pitted dried plums
• Garnish: Rosemary and Shredded Parmesan

Instructions

Turn slow cooker to HIGH.

Heat oil in large skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add roast; cook 10 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove roast from pan and place in slow cooker. Add onion and water to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.

Pour onion and water over roast in slow cooker; add remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 1 hour. Turn heat down to LOW and cook an additional 8 hours (or leave on HIGH and cook an additional 4 hours).

Remove roast from slow cooker and place onto a serving dish . Strain remaining contents of slow cooker into a fat separating measuring cup. Add strained vegetables mixture to serving platter. Let cooking juices stand 2 minutes (fat will rise to the top). Pour strained juice over roast and vegetables stopping before fat layer reaches opening; discard fat.

Slice roast; garnish with rosemary and Parmesan, if desired. Serve with carrot mixture and sauce.

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