– – – – – – – – – – –
NOTE: This is where the meal plans and recipes you save end up. You can edit and organize these how you like.
* New Meal Plan Training Videos HERE.
– – – – – – – – – – –
My Old Favourites
My Favourite Collections
– – – – – – – – – – –
NOTE: This is where the meal plans and recipes you save end up. You can edit and organize these how you like.
* New Meal Plan Training Videos HERE.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Hi Jules,
I have just finished watching your Masterclass on how to prepare for Christmas dinner. What great tips to keep it simple. To this day I am using the ideas that you gave me during our video chats.
I have come to terms with my autoimmune disease (Myasthenia Gravis) and retired (unfortunately) from my job as a teacher aide earlier this year (what a year) .
This has been a year for implementing all I have learnt about eating well, making it easier and focussing on what I can to do help myself be at my best.
Food is great medicine. One thing I have learnt and that is the value of green. Whether it be eating as green (love my green veg) and as clean as possible but looking after our environment as well.
Thanks Jules, I never slipped away, just took a sabbatical. Loving everything you are doing and have done.
Long time between conversations, Di
Oh so lovely to hear from you Di!
So glad you’re still using the ideas I gave you during our coaching.
And love the idea of the value of green 🙂
Take care
Jx
this week’s meal plans #507 and #508 for Nov 7th are exactly the same for Northern & Southern Hemisphere. Is that correct?
Well spotted Joan! This is the first time I’ve done it but decided to keep it simple this week – Autumn and Spring have a lot of similarities 🙂
I have some feedback for the ’SMP’ website.
It would be a good idea if you asked your members (A) what general cuisine any member would like to cook and eat from regularly.
Once a member finishes with (A) customers are provided with a more grannula set of choices around what food groups they want to eat or avoid.
Lastly, you could drill-down whatever ingredients you will eat, and which
Thanks for the feedback John!
Will have to have a big think about the best way to implement your suggestions
Apologies for not completing my previous feedback as I accidentally touched ’send’.
Completing my last sentence, which should have read, ’Lastly, you could drill-down whatever ingredients you will eat, and which ingredients you will not eat, by selecting or rejecting individual food items.
For example, (A) for me would be a low or moderate I Ketogenic diet, for someone else it could be high carbohydrate or high protein.
These broad choices could be extended to any national cuisine for people who are interested in a particular cuisine.
(B) for me would be mostly determined by the ketogenic diet and further restricted if I or others had any food allergies.
(C) would be a list of individual foods under categories such as beef, poultry, legumes, fruits, dairy etc.
The point of doing all of this is to bring the entire resources of the SMP website to more closely cater to the desires and choices that every individual makes for themselves in cooking and eating food.
I got a lot of ideas from your recent meal preference list you introduced a couple of weeks ago.
I also got this idea from an email from the United States from a business called ’MyDiabetes’, who’s web address is, https://www.mydiabetes.com/.
Placing a food order with them is out of the question because the country I reside in isn’t the United States.
However, I was curious about how they got new customers to register with them, and I saw their three-step method of getting their customers to select what they want to eat, and what they do not want to eat, all from a link from their email to their website.
Starting with comprehensive questions about cuisines, to what food groups you want to include or exclude, to eventually telling them that you do not want to eat particular items such as oranges, bananas, or nuts, but are happy to eat strawberries, blackberries and avocados, for example.
They then use all of these likes, dislikes, or food choices including several health-related matters such as calculating your BMI, how much exercise you do, do you fast and what method, do you want to lose weight, how much weight do you want to lose, what is your desired body weight as a goal to work towards etc.
I hope all of this may help you and your team to determine if the SMP website can be made to cater more to the individual variations of all of your members, and that more members may appreciate that they increasingly become a particular focus or aim of the SMP site. Thank you.
That’s a lot John – thanks for taking the time to share this. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Green Goddess Soup is very similar to Broccoli & Pesto Bowls from last week’s meal plan. Fortunately my pick from this week’s challenge (Shakshuka) will fill in that hole, and I also wanted to revisit my old standard of Tuna Pilaf, so still plenty to cook.
Always plenty to cook Mark 🙂
I tried listening to the videos and did not fare very well with them because of my hearing issues. I cannot figure out how to delete recipes from the list. I have been so stressed that I managed to miss the first 3 days as they happened, and that’s just made trying to deal with the site worse. Help, please!
Never mind, Jules. I figured out the delete. But I’m not quite there with adding items, because I’m not sure where them from…
Glad you got the delete Susan
Did you save the go-to meals collection to ‘my favourite collections’?
You can add recipes either from a specific collection that you’ve saved.
Or from your inbox.
Or you can search by recipe name and add from there.
Does that help? No probs if I doesn’t. Happy to keep workshopping with you to get it working for you.
So sorry you had problems hearing the videos Susan.
We don’t want to stress you out!
I’ve added written instructions for the actions for each day of the challenge on the challenge page.
Would you mind having a look and letting me know if they make sense.
And if they don’t – don’t let it stress you out. Just let me know and I’ll think of something else.
Thanks for your patience Susan!
Dear Jules,
I am lost. I could only favour recepies in ‚my old favourites‘ but don‘t know how to transfer them into the new ones…
Thanks for a hint in advance and for all the delicious work,
Petra
Try clicking on Add to My Inbox just above the second instance of the recipe title, then go to the collection that you want to add it to in your new favourites, and click on Add Item. The default selection list will be the recipes in your inbox. Drag and drop the recipe into the new collection. N.B. this only works if your mouse pointer is over the grey rectangle with the equals sign to the left of the recipe title. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the excellent explanation Mark!
Somehow I missed Petra’s message yesterday.
I’ll create a video to help as well.
Could you post a link to the challenge page from your last email? When I click the link in the email it brings me to the log in page for the site. From there I do not see a link to the challenge page. Or can you tell me where to find it once I am logged in. Thanks.
Sorry Karen!
Glad you asked!
The challenge is over here https://smp.to/go-to-meals-challenge/
You should have been automatically redirected after you logged in.
Next time that happens, after you log in go back to the email and click the link and it should work.
Hi Jules …. clicked on the link, was logged in but I get the error saying I need to be a member
Hi Jules, I’m getting the same error message, and it doesn’t matter how many times I log in, I just can’t access the link.
Sorry Michelle!
My bad. All fixed now. Would you mind trying again?
https://smp.to/go-to-meals-challenge/
Thank you for your patience 🙂
Thanks, Jules. This link works fine.
Phew 🙂
Thanks Michelle!
So sorry Robert!
Just found an error on my end.
All fixed now so it should work for you. Would you mind trying again https://smp.to/go-to-meals-challenge/
So sorry 🙂
PS. I’ve also added a link to the nav menu above – thanks for giving me the idea for that Karen!
hello! i think that changing the # of servings doesn’t work when you print the shopping list in US Customary system. (i’m sorry we even use the customary system, metric is obviously better haha)
Yes metric is better Elizabeth!
Sorry you had problems with the # servings.
I just tested it out and it worked for me.
2 thoughts that could be causing problems –
1. Make sure you choose the ‘regenerate the shopping list‘ after you change the number of serves so it calculates properly.
To check the # servings for each recipe that have been used for the shopping list tick the ‘collection’ check box at the top of the print page and look at the number of servings next to each recipe. If it’s not right – go back to the collection, refresh the page and then regenerate the shopping list.
2. The other problem could be because for some recipes I include the US measurements for the original recipe in the notes section next to the ingredient. So you can see the US measurements without having to switch to the US measurements view. So when you change # servings, the amount in the US measurements view will recalculate but the amount in the notes stays constant.
Do you think either of these could be causing the problem? Or something else?
Am sure we can fix it for you!
Jx
I tried again and I think it might be because of the specific recipes I’m trying to change the servings for. I don’t think it’s the notes thing you mentioned for #2 – I think it might be because the servings are not the same type as for most recipes – they have “1 cup” and “1 person” instead of “2 people” on the recipe pages. It seems to update for metric but not US customary. Not sure but here are the links to the recipes: https://smp.to/2019/08/almond-hummus/
https://smp.to/2020/02/the-good-greens/
Wow thanks for your patience with this Elizabeth.
I’ve just checked with those recipes and there’s defintiely a problem with converting any ingredients that are in lb and oz in the shopping list. Leave it with me – will have to get my tech team onto it.
Thanks for alerting me to the problem!
Hey Elizabeth!
My tech guy has fixed the metric calculations problem as far as I can tell. Would you mind having another go and letting me know how you get on?
Thanks for alerting me to the problem!
Jx
np & it looks good now!
Excellent!
I finally cooked our first meal from the plan. I picked the 🥦 and goat cheese soup and it worked out well. I’d never used the stick blender. Pretty cool 😎 might try making cashew spiced butter, the next time I make the salmon and 🥦 with spiced butter.
ooh love the idea of cashew spiced butter Ellen – yum!
I got logged in, but everything i click on, I get “sorry, your membership level doesn’t allow this.” Meal plans, favorites. To this point, I haven’t been able to see a single recipe.
So sorry Lucy – there was a problem with your membership on my end – have fixed things so you shouldn’t have any more problems
Sorry again
Jx
Something is very wrong. I’ve paid the membership, but can never get past this point, which is not helpful at all. I would really appreciate it 🙏 if you and your tech team could resolve this issue for me, so my husband and myself might start eating and feeling better. He’s just recovering from open heart surgery. I’m trying to do the best I can for both of us. Please do help, if you would.
Thank you,
Ellen Ball
Evanston, Illinois
USA
So sorry Ellen!
Will email you now – am sure we can resolve the problem for you 🙂
I am picking the broccoli with walnut crumbs and chicken for my first meal.
Yum Peggy!
Is there any way to edit a Note or Custom Recipe once it’s in the collection? Or is the only way to delete/add new? (If not, can I add that as a feature request?) 🙂 Also, how do you “save” once you add a new recipe to a collection? Sometimes I navigate away and then my changes are lost. Thanks!!
I’ve already asked my developer for the ability to edit notes Elizabeth – great minds 🙂
And I’ve had the same problem navigating away and it telling me that my changes are lost. But when I reload the collections page and open the collection again the changes are saved – will see what I can do to make this less clunky – thanks for asking!
If you want to edit a custom recipe – just email me and I can do it on the back end. Also best to add custom recipe via the submit your recipes form rather than in the collections because they don’t save for future use if you add to a specific collection.
So glad you’re playing around with all the features!
refreshing worked – that’s a great tip. thank you for all the info!
Glad it worked Elizabeth – there’s nothing worse than losing things!
And will work on solutions for the rest 🙂
I created a shopping list and saved it, but now the page doesn’t want me to leave, even though the “Save Shopping List” button is greyed out.
“This page is asking you to confirm that you want to leave – data you entered may not have been saved.”
If I ignore this message and come back, then the amended list is still there, but I still get the message when I try to leave.
Yes I’ve been getting this too Mark – thanks for letting me know it’s not just me! Will have to dig deeper to see what’s going on with it.
You mentioned experimenting with ‘nacho’ recipes, I found one that me and my husband love. Take mini-peppers, cut them in half, bake @325 for 10 mins. Add a teaspoon of cream cheese, teaspoon of cheddar cheese, a sprinkling of bacon bits, a little hot sauce. Bake 10 more mins. Serve!
Oh yum Clara! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’m having difficulty commenting in most other places on this site – ‘You are not allowed to view comments on this post.’
Could your tech person look into this? Thanks.
Will do Mark!
Thanks for letting me know – I was wondering why there weren’t any comments!
It should be fixed now Mark – let me know if it’s working for you 🙂
Thanks Jules, that seems to be working now.
I saved my collection then upped the serving size to 3 which when I click on my meal plan for this week does seem to have saved, however when I generate the shopping list, it reverts to 2 and only shows ingredient amounts in the shopping list for 2. Am I doing something wrong?
So sorry Tara!
There was a problem with the meal planning software that was causing errors like this.
Would you be able to try again?
Just make sure you choose the ‘regenerate shopping list’ option to get the calculations for the correct number of serves.
Sorry it’s not easier first time 🙂
Let me know how you get on.
Jx
Greetings, Jules! Love the new meal plans site! Lots of information that is easy to manipulate.
Noticed that the US customary link doesn’t work. Doesn’t convert measurements to ounces, etc.
I am using my iPhone with iOS13.
Can’t wait to try new recipes this week.
Excellent Ken!
Sorry the measurement link isn’t working on your phone – I just checked and it’s not working on my phone either! Will get my developer to look into it. It is working for recipes on Stonesoup though so I think it’s to do with a software update. aah technology!
Hi Jules, I am very curious about your Simple Meal Plans website address ending with ‘.to’ What is ‘.to’ short for? Thanks.
It’s short for Tonga I think John. I like the idea of going to the website – and keeping the url super simple! PS> I made your avocado flat bread on the weekend – Baked in the oven and they were good but needed some more experimenting. Thank you for the idea!
Thanks for trying the recipe on the weekend. Any alterations that you think will improve the recipe for everyone, is OK by me.
dear jules
i don’t get my mails with my mealplans any longer
maybe it’s because i canceled interweaves
can you please change my emailadress and send the mealplans to birgit.brabetz@icloud.com
thank you so much
i miss my mealplans very hard
lg birgit
Oh no Birgit!
Will get Caroline to fix this for you 🙂
Made “Livvie’s I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Chicken Stew” today. Changed spinach to half Kale and Arugula and some summer squash from my garden. Added can of tomato and a tiny bit of cream. It was very good. Did need a ton of seasoning, so I added some old bay spice for chicken and a little chicken stock. Very very yummy!
Now, if I can find time to understand he new meal plan content, I would love to get started! Thanks for your help!
Nice work on the stew Tracey!
The meal plans are easy to get stated with – just watch the first video over here.
It’s easier than you’d think.
Hi Jules,
I’m having trouble selecting recipes as favourites. I’ve tried touching the star symbol on the recipe and it won’t register. I was trying to to favourite the Burgers with My int & Almond Salsa recipe.
Cheers,
Jan.
Sorry you had problems Jan!
The star symbol on the recipe is to rate the recipe out of 5.
To add save the recipe as a favourite you need to click on the ‘add to inbox’ icon (next to the print icon) near the recipe title.
It will then get saved to your recipe inbox collection and you can use it from there.
Does that help?
Jx
Sorry it’s a bit confusing,
Jules, does that work if it’s one of the meal plan recipes? I’ve been trying to save the ones I am trying on their own in my inbox, but nothing is happening. The checkbox is selected for the individual recipe, but it’s not showing up on its own, only in a meal plan. The problem is trying to go back and find one without having to click on every meal plan. Colleen
Oh no Colleen!
This function is broken as well! aargh!
It’s not you.
So sorry and thanks for alerting me to the problem.
Hi Colleen
The new favourites are working properly now too when you’re ready to experiment 😉
I like the new format. I took some getting used to, but now I don’t want it any other way. I’m starting to build up a collection of favorites to put into my meal plans. Keep up the good work Jules
So glad you’ve enjoying it Jeroen!
If you think of anything that would make it easier to use – I’m all ears 🙂
I am not liking this style , have to get use to it , I am not tech sauvy ,😢
You can do it Patricia! Let me know if there are any specific things you are struggling with. I can make a special training video for you if you need extra help. It will be worth the learning curve I promise 🙂
thank you so much! that worked like a charm. loving the new features 🙂
Great!
hi jules! i’m trying out the new features with collections and i’m having some trouble. i removed some recipes from the collection and added a few new ones, but when i click on the “shopping list” it seems to only generate based on the original meal plan – it doesn’t account for my changes. the same happens if i even just change the # servings for existing recipe within the original meal plan. is there a “save” button i’m missing or anything like that?
also, is there any way to get the variations to show up if i add new recipes? it helps if they show so that i can edit the shopping list more easily (on the same page).
thanks!!
so glad you’re trying the new format Elizabeth! Sorry you’ve had problems.
Here’s what you need to do.
1. Save the meal plan to your collections (which I assume you’ve done).
2. Edit the meal plan as you like. Add / remove things.
3. Click on shopping list. This will generate the standard list based on the original plan.
4. Click on regenerate shopping list – it will then ask which units you want to use and if you want to include ingredient notes (choose yes to this).
5. It will then update the shopping list with your choices.
6. Save your new shopping list. Then you can edit or share it.
Sorry this is a bit clunky – will see what I can do to make it generate the shopping list from your changes first.
And with the variation notes – I add them in manually so if you want to include a different recipe, you’ll need to look at that recipe page to see the variations. Will add to my list for future versions 🙂
Does that help?