It can be hard to keep everything going and pinterest and instagram make it look like everyone is meal prepping on a Sunday, eating perfectly all week and here you are asking your husband for the millionth time ‘what do you want to eat this week’ staring at that blank post it note meal planner you bought at target.  Then if you DO get it together you write down the meals, go through recipes, make an ingredient list, check the pantry for what you have (I forget this step a lot and end up with a lot of paprika)…. you look up and its dinner time on Sunday and you haven’t even made it to the grocery store.  

Well fear no more, I’m sharing our family secret to easy meal planning, recipe storage, and grocery shopping and it’s called AnyList.  

AnyList is an iphone (and desktop) app that we have been using for over 4 years and it started as an easy way to create and share shopping lists between our phones, so I could make a list and it would ping Ed’s phone and while he stopped to pick up milk or something on the way home he would have an up to date list of what else we needed (wine for example).

As the app became more developed they added an area for recipes which allows you to input your own favorites or automatically pull them from your favorite websites into storage.  The recipes then have an area to add them directly to your shopping list and now into a meal plan calendar!  You can plan your entire week from your recipes and then add the whole week to your shopping list in a couple of clicks.  The list automatically syncs between phones so whether I’m shopping, or Ed, or both of us but in separate parts of the store (shopping with a baby am I right? #divideandconquer ) we are instantly up to date.  

Here is an example of my weekly ‘meal planning’ workflow …. 

FIND RECIPES FOR THE WEEK
I’ve got a lot of recipes stored and folders for go-to-faves when I don’t have time to think about it. Importing from Skinnytaste or CookingLight is super easy too.

ADD RECIPES TO THE CALENDAR

Go to the meal planning tab and add recipes in the calendar view.  I add quick notes for leftover nights and aim for 3 big meals a week and prepping only my breakfast on Sundays (I don’t have 8 hours to cook for the whole week)

ADD TO THE SHOPPING LIST

PANTRY SHOPPING

You can click to add all ingredients to your list or come to this page and check what things you really need and just select those (i.e. salt and pepper probably not a weekly purchase)

VOILA! YOUR LIST IS DONE!
And just like that the week is planned and the list is on all devices, you can pretty much nap and send dad to the store. 

GIVEAWAY

While the app itself is free, all of these features have a small fee of $11.99 per year in order to completely synced as a family and across the web app, desktop and phone.  We have found it to be a no-brainer and have reknewed every year.  Good news for Gliss Nest readers, we are giving away one premium subscription to AnyList Complete to a lucky reader!  In addition to winning I’ll send you my top 10 favorite recipes from my favorites folder and you can be on your way to eating healthy, quick meals in no time! 

How to enter:
Get (1) one entry for each :

• Instagram comment on this post
• Blog Comment below (make sure to leave your e-mail!) 
• Instagram Story with a tag to @ashleyamberphoto
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  Giveaway announced Wednesday night!