In the last few years I have become much more interested in nutrition and cooking, and (hopefully) have gotten much better at both. I take a certain pride in cooking healthful meals that taste great but aren't too time-consuming (I do enjoy cooking but I'm also a graduate student and have limited time--actually, who doesn't?) Anyways, I've been collected recipes from various sources which meet my criteria for being healthful, at least relatively easy, and delicious and was looking for a way to compile them all in one place easily so I don't have to scour through my recipe books every time I want to make something or plan my week's menus.
And now, I have found an amazing program that not only organizes recipes, but has this awesome amazing feature where you just click on a recipe and it adds all the ingredients to a shopping list for you! It can also generate nutritional info for your recipes, and can adjust the recipes for different #s of servings, etc. I know that you can do that on Allrecipes.com too, BUT only for recipes that are already on the website. With this program, I can input my own stash of recipes and then with a few clicks--presto! My shopping list is ready--just print it and go. Awesome. And...it's free! Yay, free-ware! It does take an investment of time to input the recipes up front, but you can copy and paste or upload them from text files or even webpages, so it's not that bad. You just have to tell the program which parts are the ingredients, the instructions, and so on.
And, my awesome amazing husband wrote me a little program to take the shopping list that the program makes and put it into a format on my palm pilot so I can just check off the ingredients on my palm as I go. Man, this is the life! I heart technology! And smart husbands! And free software!
6 comments:
That program looks awesome! I am going to check it out; I really need to get all my recipes organized (for now, I am mostly just searching my old blog posts as my recipe book!). My SIL Julia recommended a similar program (can't remember the name of it!) that seemed to also keep track of what's in your pantry for you, but it cost a little bit of money.
And YAY for smart husbands; how clever of him to figure that out for you!
Now if only I was organized enough to actually plan the menus...
Oh, this one can remember what's in your pantry too! You just drag ingredients over to the pantry if you already have them. Then, the next time you add that recipe, the program remembers what you already have (but you can also drag them back out of the pantry too if you need to).
I want it!! I want it!! I want it!! What Do I want? I want a husband that will just "write a program" for me. You say it like it's as simple as going to the store.
Anyway, this sounds amazing. I'm going to check it out as soon as I go home!
I LOVE this program. I mean, I love the idea--I'll have to try it out.
Yay for smart husbands. Now if he could somehow get the program to import recipes from our friends' files. That would be cool. I miss all your New Mexican cooking!
Yep, it already does that too! You can export recipes too--you can export them in word or in pdf, or you can export them in "gourmet xml" format (the program's own format), and if you do that, you can then send the gourmet xml files to someone else to instantly import into their program (and if you do that, you don't have to bother with the telling the program which part is the ingredient list and so on, because it's already formatted.)
But what about the traditional, old-fashioned cookbook with the chocolate stains, etc? Personally, I'm trying to distance myself from my laptop. I guess it's one of those times in my life that I just need a little space in our relationship.... In fact, I actually planned my lessons yesterday using paper and pen. I think my computer was jealous.
Post a Comment