It's one thing to have a recipe for dinner, but the key to successful meal planning is your Shopping List. We take all the work out of creating one, by providing a shopping list with every menu we create. Even our Saving Dinner series of cookbooks are unique! Recipes are grouped by weeks and seasons and include our secret tool for success —shopping lists Let's go shopping —Once you print your choice of menus, simply peruse the shopping list and cross off any ingredients already in your pantry. While you typically only need to take the shopping list to the store, you may want to take the recipes and the shopping list the first few times in case your store is out of an ingredient, and you're not sure what it was being used for in a recipe to know of a valid substitute. Personalize your menus — Each week, every recipe on your menu is given a day number. This makes it simple to know what ingredient goes with which recipe.

Book secrets - Did you know? Leave your book at home! We've made it even easier to shop by offering printable copies of our Saving Dinner book shopping lists online so you don't have to take your book to the grocery store, or mark up the shopping lists in your book. Visit the following areas to download your book shopping lists now. Saving Dinner Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way Saving Dinner the Vegetarian Way Saving Dinner for the Holidays

Each ingredient on the shopping list is followed by a notation like "[D2,3]". This notation tells you that this ingredient is used in recipe #2 and recipe #3. If you need to omit a recipe, simply determine the number of the recipe you want to omit, and cross off all ingredients on your shopping list using that day number. If you are shopping, and not sure what an ingredient is being used for, simply look at the day number and you can quickly reference the proper recipe. Fast and easy!

Ingredients for the Serving Suggestions — each meal comes with recommended serving suggestions. These items are not included in the nutritional information and so adding to them or substituting something of your preference will not affect the nutritional data. We encourage you to eat a well-balanced meal by including vegetables and other foods with your main course.

Side dish ingredients do not include "quantities". This is because every family's needs are different. If it says "broccoli" and you have 5 people in your family — buy enough broccoli for everyone to enjoy a nice sized portion.

Ingredients for the serving suggestions are included on the shopping list. They are designated by two stars (**) before the ingredient. If you are using the Low Carb or Body Clutter menus, you will see ** and **lc on your shopping lists. The ** are for ingredients used in the regular (carby) side dish suggestions for family members NOT following a low carb lifestyle. The **lc is marked next to ingredients that are part of the serving suggestions for those following the low carb recommendations.

How OPTIONS work on the shopping list —One of the key features of our menus is the ability to personalize and customize them. Many of our menus offer "optional" suggestions at the end to further meet the requirements of those with special dietary needs. Here are a few of those options:

Vegetarian Suggestions — these are included on the Regular Menu-Mailer for those following a vegetarian lifestyle or simply desiring to use less meats in their diets. If you chose to use the substitution, simply cross out the original meat item on the shopping list and refer to the vegetarian section for those items. Non-vegetarians can ignore the vegetarian section of the shopping list and recipes.

Kosher Suggestions — these are included on the Regular and Low Carb Menu-Mailers for those observing Kosher laws in their food preparations. If you chose to use the substitution, simply cross out the item from the shopping list that the instructions say to remove and refer to the Kosher section for any needed substitutions. if you are not following a Kosher lifestyle, simply ignore the Kosher section of the shopping list and recipes.

Gluten Free Suggestions — these are included on the Low Carb Menu-Mailer and are for those needing to eliminate gluten from their diets due to allergies or an intollerance. Some substitutions include ingredients you may need to look for in health food type stores, though we try to limit those.

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You may also wish to visit our articles archives for our Getting Started hints and tips along with lots of other articles and recipes for additional money and time saving tips to help you maximize the benefits of Menu-Mailer along with shopping smarter.