Over the past few years of working full-time, I’ve tried a couple of different recipe services that were supposed to make meals easier by providing grocery lists and recipes. I usually ended up having to veto half of the recipes for using expensive or hard-to-find ingredients (scallops for six) or having limited appeal to kids (salmon and legumes). Some of the recipes were just not very tasty; I remember a spectacular fail of a cheeseburger casserole that was both salty and flavorless. Some of the recipes from a gluten-free service plan ended up telling me to omit ingredients including gluten rather than building a meal around other options like rice or quinoa.
I spent the last year flying by the seat of my pants and making about ten rotating things (and a lot of pasta) for dinner. In December, I threw in the towel and started looking at apps that dealt with meal planning. I was not interested in a monthly or yearly subscription, so I was willing to pay for an app that would do what I wanted with a minimum of fuss.