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It's time to get organized!
Hi, another software program you might want to check into is Cook'n. It's what I use and I love it. To take a look at it, go to
www.dvo.com
I bought mine online. There is a free monthly newsletter and a weekly newsletter that costs $8-10 a month, but you get a free recipe book each month with that subscription. There are a lot of cookbooks available, including many Betty Crocker cookbooks, Taste of Home, etc. There is also a forum that I enjoy participating in where tips and recipes are exchanged.
I copy and paste a lot of internet recipes into my Cook'n. With the cookbooks I have received from DVO, internet recipes, and my own recipes, I probably have 10-15,000 recipes, so I use the search feature a lot. When my cabbage is ready from the garden, I type in cabbage and it shows me all the recipes that use that ingredient. It also has a nutrition feature and a shopping list function.
I can't compare it with MasterCook, as Cook'n is what I'm familiar with, but it gives you another option to check out. Have fun software shopping!
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Recent Comments | Response to Comments
Help me remember this breakfast cereal
I loved Kix until they changed the formula. They are airier now and don't have nearly the taste of the old ones.
It's time to get organized!
Hi, another software program you might want to check into is Cook'n. It's what I use and I love it. To take a look at it, go to
www.dvo.com
I bought mine online. There is a free monthly newsletter and a weekly newsletter that costs $8-10 a month, but you get a free recipe book each month with that subscription. There are a lot of cookbooks available, including many Betty Crocker cookbooks, Taste of Home, etc. There is also a forum that I enjoy participating in where tips and recipes are exchanged.
I copy and paste a lot of internet recipes into my Cook'n. With the cookbooks I have received from DVO, internet recipes, and my own recipes, I probably have 10-15,000 recipes, so I use the search feature a lot. When my cabbage is ready from the garden, I type in cabbage and it shows me all the recipes that use that ingredient. It also has a nutrition feature and a shopping list function.
I can't compare it with MasterCook, as Cook'n is what I'm familiar with, but it gives you another option to check out. Have fun software shopping!
It's time to get organized!
I'm with love2cook, I like the low-tech 3-ring binder. I can put notes on how to make something or list variations.
Years ago I read a story about a family in which the wife/mother was very ill or died. The father hired a woman to cook and clean and everyone was worried about what she would cook for them. To their surprise every meal was something they liked and prepared just the way they liked it. After a while the father asked how she had managed to do this. She explained that she had found the wife/mother's collection of recipes and cooked those with the most stains and spatters -- something that would never happen if all recipes were saved online or printed and thrown away after each use.
I have 2 3-ring binders. One is for favorite recipes and the other is for recipes to try. They are divided in exactly the same way. The recipes to try binder bulges now and again and I have to purge it. I try to keep only those recipes that I actually might cook -- not all of those that sound good. One thing about the recipes to try, I've found that some are tried soon after I've found them unless they're for a special occasion or holiday. Those that hang around for more than a couple of weeks will probably never get tried.
I also keep a copy of my favorite recipes in my email account. If anything happens to my binder, I've got backup.
It's time to get organized!
@izatryt: Yes....once the scaling issue is addressed, YummySoup will be the best tool available.....on any platform. Once I am 100% behind switching, I'll migrate to YummySoup! & convert all of my YUM! recipes.
I've been playing with it for a couple weeks now, and I really like it.
It's time to get organized!
i've been meaning to give TasteBook a try... it seems pretty neat and you can include other featured recipes to your tastebook besides yours.
It's time to get organized!
@2qrs - Mac World is giving a big thumbs up to YummySoup! I posted on their forum regarding the scaling issue and was told the upgrade should be available next week. I am really tempted to go in that direction. For $20, I really don't have anything to lose. If it turns out to be a bad choice, I will skip that next bottle of wine. ;-)
It's time to get organized!
I heard about http://www.heritagecookbook.com/ on NPR and I am currently making a family cookbook, dedicated to my ill aunt, full of family recipes and picture to give out as gifts for Christmas. I think the site is really easy to use and the preview of the book looks amazing so far. There are a bunch of different templates and the prices are pretty reasonable!
It's time to get organized!
I can't imagine life without my cookbook collection...in addition to the numerous binders filled with I-prints, I've been collecting for over 20 years. I was the fortunate grandchild to receive Gramma's collection when she passed away. A friend of mine gave me her collection to "hold on to" 4 years ago.
That said...there are many recipes that I use very often. I would love to find a program that allows me to input those "go-to" recipes (in addition to finally consolidating my business recipes) and have a very user-friendly search option.
It's time to get organized!
As pksmash mentioned, flash drives are a great way to back up those recipe folders to ensure that you don't lose your recipes if your computer fails.
Several people have mentioned using Word to create their own filing and saving system. I'm toying with making recipe templates within Word. It's a nice way to format your recipes as you desire, rather than being buttonholed by a recipe-saving program.
I have several boxes of recipe cards and newspaper and magazine clippings that pre-date all of my internet recipe "finds" and they're all organized with dividers, etc. I'm inspired to get them scanned onto my computer (flash drive) as others have done but I also share the sentiments of those who enjoy looking at a hard copy of the recipe.
At any rate, have fun getting organized. :)
It's time to get organized!
I tried Mastercook in the past, but there is something about the magazine clippings with handwritten notes on them that I just love. I, too, subscribe to several food magazines and one of my great pleasures is reading them and clipping recipes. I decided not to try to automate them, but rather I bought some beautiful file folders that I leave on a bookshelf with my cookbooks in my kitchen and organize them in my own way. If I automated them, I'd want to print them out to use them while cooking anyway. So, why waste the paper? Every year or so I go through them and get rid of the stuff that I haven't and probably won't make.
It's time to get organized!
Consider using a free online wiki such as PBwiki. The freeform organization, tagging, and searching makes it very easy to add and retrieve recipes (much easier than any desktop software I've tried, and I've tried many), and because it's online, you can pull up your favorite recipe at a friend's house, on vacation, on your phone, etc.
It's time to get organized!
@2qrs - I am going to check out YUM! I downloaded a trial of MacGourmet, but since it is a trial, I don't have all the features. Importing recipes being the big missing piece. I will send you an e-mail after checking out YUM! Thanks.
It's time to get organized!
For the Mac OS X I currently use YUM!
It supports scaling, auto-fill of ingredients & measurements, adding an image, formatting the output (change font attributes, bullets, margins, etc.) and whole number of other bells and whistles. Most importantly, it will parse ingredient lists....so you can drag and drop a list of ingredients and it automatically puts the quantity, the measurement & the ingredient in the appropriate column/field. The shareware fee is what you are willing to pay, based on its worth to you.
Also, I am currently reviewing YummySoup! I found this to have all the features that YUM! has, plus one added tool that makes it slightly better. You can automatically import recipes from a number of sites like ALLRECIPES.COM, FoodandWine.com, Williams-Sonoma.com, etc. All you do is drag & drop the URL and it downloads the recipe & image automatically....and flawlessly. There is also an "import wizard" which allows you to go to a site unsupported by automatic import and download the recipe manually by highlighting portions and clicking.
However, It does not at this time allow you to resize/scale a recipe, which to me is a deal breaker.
I highly recommend YUM!
I Recommend the current version YummySoup! only if the resize function isn't essential for your use.
MacGourmet is a 3rd app that I have been impressed with....the export to webpage/blog page feature intrigues me. However, a few glitches with some basic functions and a lack of a few basic abilities has kept me from using it, but I'd say it is worth checking out.
E-mail me if you have any Mac specific questions regarding software, I tend to keep up on what's out there.
It's time to get organized!
I use a 3 ring notebook that has plastic sleeves for full size paper so i can print off items i love and keep but now i feel woefully low tech:). But i like it and it has a homy feel- i am always online so i enjoy the paper feel.
It's time to get organized!
I was REALLY excited for a minute. I have a MAC, not a PC, and the programs suggested on this thread are not compatible with a MAC. I sent an e-mail to Dan at Cook 'n because he said he would invest in a MAC version if 1,000 paid $10 and got on the list. I am curious to see how many are on the list.
Are there any MAC users out there with a program you recommend? I looked for programs and there are a few out there, but I don't want to invest without the SE input. Thanks!
It's time to get organized!
We had this problem. Recipes from both our families and things we had printed off the internet. The recipes always got thrown in a cabinet and the great sort would have to occur before we could cook something....NO MORE! We started typing or scanning tried and true recipes and now have them on a single folder on the desktop. There are backed up on cdrw or flashdrives. We you want a recipe, print it out and discard after using. I keep a separate folder of recipes which are being tried out and load them on the computer once they have been worked thru. This system is a godsend.
It's time to get organized!
Huneybumper, I'm on it with you. The computer is great but what I would like to do is to organize my tried and true recipes, add some family stories around them and get a vanity print for my children and the "cousins". I have a great fear of all the knowledge we are losing as everything is sent into cyberspace! But that being said, the computer can be a great tool to achieve my goal and I will certainly look into some of these programs
It's time to get organized!
wow! you are all so tech savy! wish i could help but my system is print out the recipe and put it in a binder with those page pretecors over them. I can scrawl on the page protector to change amounts, and when, you notice i saywhen not if, my computer dies I dont lose all my recipes. Besides i love books, i love seeing rows of books on shelves and i love seeing a full row of 18 binders filled with recipes i've collected through the years.
It's time to get organized!
I know what you mean about old back issues of magazines. I subscribe to about 6 different ones and didn't want to throw them away because there wasalways a recipe in one that I wanted. To rid myself of the magazines I actually went through them all, went to the website for the magazine to get the recipe and then did a copy and paste into my personally created recipe folder. yes my system doesn't do a search well or create a grocery list but it sure is nice to be rid of the old magazines.
It's time to get organized!
i'm intimately familiar with the binders and file folders stuffed with scrawled recipes or recipes torn from newspapers and magazines. i also have had to deal with an ever growing collection of back issues from the two food magazines i subscribe to. and i have at least two document folders of recipes on the computer.
to stem the flow i started using Recipe Center 5.2.
what i like about it:
it has a great autofill function for ingredients
ability to create your own keywords
ability to create and save menus of groups of recipes
handy ingredient printing list (but see what i don't like below)
ability to attach photos of finished dish
range of printing format options
what i don't like about it:
search functionality is minimal -- you can't search on more than one keyword for instance
the shopping list output doesn't add up all the ingredient quantities into 1 entry per ingredient.
i'm going to stick with it now that i've put over hundreds of recipes in it.
i've been using a scanner to slowly tackle the binders and use pretty decent OCR to generate text from the scan. then it's just a matter of copyign and pasting into the recipe database, choosing some keywords, and it's saved!
It's time to get organized!
I am not familiar with any of the products mentioned but I created my own directory on my computer with folders inside for different types of food. When I find a recipe I want to save I can copy it and paste it into a word document and save it in a personal folder. If I have paper copies of recipes I scanned them into my computer, named them and then filed them. I wanted a format for the recipes that I could add my own comments and it has worked well. It was a project I started a while back and am now happy with my system. It is organized the way I think and I am not having to try to fit into a system. It is just the way I addressed the problem that itseems alot of us have.
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About Judyb80
Location: judyb80@netscape.net
About: I enjoy reading recipes, collecting cookbooks and recipes, and reading in general. I have 10 grandkids who keep my life interesting. I also enjoy doing things on the computer.
Favorite foods: comfort foods, sweet and salty foods, and most anything with marshmallows.
Last bite on earth: cornbread and Old Settler's Baked Beans (a dish containing 3 kinds of beans, hamburger and bacon in a slightly spicy baked bean format).
I loved Kix until they changed the formula. They are airier now and don't have nearly the taste of the old ones.