Gizmos for Cooks

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal noted that traffic to recipe websites has increased significantly as people cut back on eating out and instead opt to cook at home.

For example, MyRecipes.com has doubled its traffic in the past year to almost 3 million visitors. Meantime, AllRecipes.com has surpassed the Food Network’s site in web traffic.

However, we here at GfC think that there is even more value in those websites that help you plan your meals and shopping for the week. No longer do you have to go to the grocery and stare at the shelves wondering what to cook. Instead, visit a site such as MealMixer, select your meals for the week (includes recipes), and it will assemble a complete shopping list that prints out nicely.

There are other such sites, including Saving Dinner and The Six O’Clock Scramble. While these sites are not free, consider that an annual fee of $50 or so per year is not terrible when you think about how much time, gas and frustration you’ll save yourself.