Almost three years ago, Aviva Goldfarb, a Maryland stay-at-home mom with a growing family, met the challenge of getting a healthy dinner on the table every night of the week by creating a menu-planning system. Soon, she decided to share her system with others, creating The Six O’Clock Scramble (
www.thescramble.com), a menu-planning website. Here’s a quick guide to her website — and others — where recipes, shopping lists, and time-saving cooking tips are just a few clicks away.
Fastest and Freshest
www.thescramble.com What You Get: Every Wednesday, five entrée recipes with side-dish suggestions and a shopping list are e-mailed to you. The list highlights the required amounts of staples, like sugar and oil, down to the teaspoon; recipe codes make it easy to reformat a shopping list should you want to skip a recommended meal.
The Flavor: The food is international and eclectic: Greek rice bowl, udon noodle soup, roasted salmon with lime and cilantro. The simple, seasonal recipes pack more flavor with fewer ingredients in less time than those of other services. Subscribing is like joining a book group: lots to talk about with other users besides the main event. Discussions, which in any given e-mail may hit on health issues or cooking with kids, are steered by enthusiastic founder Goldfarb.
Cost: $5 a month, $26.50 for six months, $47.50 a year. Previous weeks’ menus, $1.50 each.
For Organizing
www.morethyme.com What You Get: This is the most detailed planner available.
A weekly menu, complete with side dishes and nutritional tips, arrives in your in-box early each week. It’s the only service here that lets you upload your own recipes into the weekly rotation and shopping list. Swap recipes you don’t like with those you do, from an easily searchable archive or from your “favorites” box, or revert to a previous week’s plan your family swooned over.
The Flavor: The food is delicious: homey, international bistro fare, like jerk pork roast. And while most online planners’ shopping lists begin and end with what’s on your weekly menu, you can use More Thyme’s technology to add anything you want to your list, from snacks to school supplies. If you’re interested in a particular diet (balanced, low-carb, low-fat), More Thyme can suggest recipes to suit your preferences.
Cost: $90 a year, with frequent sales promotions.
