For Hearty Appetites
www.dinnerplanner.com What You Get: Seven entrée recipes, plus side dishes and a dessert, e-mailed each Friday. The shopping lists are color-coded (Monday’s meal ingredients are green, Tuesday’s are red, etc.), making them a breeze to follow. You can instant-message questions through the live-help chat from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST, and at the end of each three-month subscription, you receive a printable e-cookbook with all the recipes you made, in case you didn’t save them.
The Flavor: If your mother were to convert her recipe box full of sticky, smudged index cards into a menu planner, this is what you’d find. These recipes include stick-to-your-ribs Salisbury steak and pulled-pork sandwiches — with a nod or two to international palates.
Cost: $15 for three months, with discounts for renewals.
For Special Effects
shop.allrecipes.com/shop/cooknik What You Get: Five entrée recipes with serving suggestions, a shopping list, and professional cooking and shopping advice e-mailed every Wednesday.
The Flavor: Allrecipes has compiled a treasure trove of recipes — 30,000 at last count — contributed by home cooks. Recently, in partnership with cookbook author and former
Cook’s Illustrated editor Pam Anderson, who edited and tested the collection, Allrecipes launched Cooknik, a menu planner featuring American food with worldly diversions: roast chicken on one night, scallops with orange-basil sauce or eggplant Parmesan the next. And if it’s technically possible, this website does it, offering high-quality photographs, alternative recipe suggestions, easy scaling tools, online recipe boxes, and more.
Cost: $17 for six months.
