For the past two years or so, my husband and I have adopted the Paleo eating framework and try to eat mostly Paleo at home when we can. I will never pretend that we don’t fall off the wagon too many times to count, but we always do our best to stock our pantry and fridge with wholesome, unprocessed foods. This past year I discovered the wonders of Evernote, and have been using it to “file my life”, as I like to call it.
So, I decided… why not use the amazing Evernote to help me plan seasonal/local AND Paleo meals? This could only make for more yummy and less stressful eating in my house. So I went for it. And it has been great! Here is the scoop:
First, I created separate notebooks in Evernote for each season. All “stacked” under the main “Food and Meals” notebook. More about stacks here.
Then, I made a list of the veggies available in Tennessee for each season. This would be my guide for deciding which notebook to file my recipes. For example, anything with parsnips is going into my “Winter Recipes” notebook. Obviously there can be a great deal of overlap here, but you get the jist.
Then came the fun part… populating each notebook with my favorite Paleo recipes! I took photos of the recipes in a few of my favorite Paleo cookbooks, including Everyday Paleo and Paleo Comfort Foods. I also used the Evernote web clipper to clip many recipes from some of my favorite Paleo blogs and websites. My goal was to have at least 15 dinner recipes for each season. I wanted to establish some great “go-to” dishes for our household that we could rely on each season, but change it up every 3 months so we wouldn’t get bored.
Last but not least, about those grocery lists. Nasty little buggers. All of our best laid plans for amazing meals can go perfectly awry without a good list, available at the right time. How would I translate all this yummy Paleo and seasonal goodness into reality? Enter the magic app for Evernote called SayMmm.
With SayMmm, I simply tag any recipe that I would like to make that week with the “SayMmm” tag, and it automatically populates the “SayMmm” folder. (Be sure to hit “sync” a few times to make sure it works.) Then I hit the handy dandy “combine lists” button, and Voila! All of the recipes I need for the week have been created as a perfectly simple grocery list!
And of course, with the Evernote app for iPhone, I can access these lists while I am wandering the aisles at Trader Joe’s. And since my husband and I share an Evernote account, I can ask him to pick up the groceries, and he can! It’s beautiful.
Here’s to eating healthy and local with ease in 2013!
