EatYourBooks.com: search your own cookbooks for recipes online

[Chris Hennes]

Is it just me, or is the Onion Gratin recipe from Modernist Cuisine (p. 5•265) missing? Also, is there a way to search just within a particular cookbook?

[Chris Hennes]

Also: is it possible to remove just a single recipe from a shopping list? I only see a way to clear the whole thing.

[FrogPrincesse]

Also, is there a way to search just within a particular cookbook?

To do this, I just type the name of the book (or the author) in the seach box, together with the other search terms and/or filters.

[Okanagancook]

BadRabbit

I just started using the star rating system for recipes. It is a good idea for everyone. Just went through my copy of Charmaine Solomon's "The Complete Asian Cookbook" and rated all the recipes where I had made notes about how I felt it turned out. The problem with the rating system is that when you add a note to a recipe and then want to return to the index of recipes to rate the next recipe the screen brings you back to the beginning of the book and you have to advance through the book to where you ended your last rating. I will contact EYB to see if they can fix that.

[jane@eatyourbooks]

Apologies for the delay in my responses to questions here, though it looks like other members have been doing a great job answering them - thanks!

Okanagancook - Firstly, thank you so much for adding Notes for your Recipes. This really increases the value of EYB for all members. Your problem is actually a browser issue, not something we at EYB can overcome easily. For example on Firefox the back button takes you back to where you were, but on IE you go back to the start. What I suggest you do is open a new browser tab each time you go to a details page to add Notes. On IE you do that by holding down the CTRL key and clicking the link. If you use a different browser you will need to check in Help how to do it. Then when you have finished adding Notes and ratings for that recipe, close that tab and you are back on the search results exactly where you left it, as you never actually moved from that tab.

Also: is it possible to remove just a single recipe from a shopping list? I only see a way to clear the whole thing.

You are right, it should be possible to do that. We are completely reworking the shopping list when we design the smartphone interface for the site, which is our next big project. The shopping list will then be editable and can be emailed or texted.

Is it just me, or is the Onion Gratin recipe from Modernist Cuisine (p. 5•265) missing? Also, is there a way to search just within a particular cookbook?

We weren't sent the entire 6 volumes (sadly), just the Kitchen Manual which should contain all the recipes that appear anywhere in the other 5 volumes. There isn't an alpha index for the manual but looking through the chapter listing at the front I couldn't see any Onion gratins listed. I wonder whether they accidentally missed it out? When you are using the 5 volumes is there a reference to the page number in the Kitchen Manual? If so, what page does it say it is on?

On the points about adding magazines to your Bookshelves. We are working our way back through the more popular magazines such as Gourmet and Bon Appètit. We have indexed all of Cook's Illustrated back to when they started in 1992. As Bad Rabbit suggests, it is a good idea to add to your Bookshelf the magazines you know you like, even if you don't subscribe, as so many of the recipes have Recipe Online links. For example the Observer Food Monthly from the UK has great recipes from Heston, Fergus Henderson, Nigel Slater, David Chang, Fuchsia Dunlop, etc and every one is linked back to their site for the full recipe.

[Chris Hennes]

We weren't sent the entire 6 volumes (sadly), just the Kitchen Manual [...]

Aha! Unfortunately the kitchen manual doesn't have all the recipes from volume 5, which explains the omission. Is there a way for one of us with the book to index just the missing recipes?

[jane@eatyourbooks]

Wow, I wish they had told us that! Have they given any reason for it? Yes, we can assign the index for the book to any member who would like to add the missing recipes and they can add them to the end of the current index. Is there an alpha index for each of the 5 volumes so members can easily find the recipes in Vol 5? I hadn't realized there was no alpha index in the Kitchen Manual so presumably it would also be very useful if the person who did this also added the KM page numbers in EYB comments. A labor of love!

[Chris Hennes]

I think I read a reason someplace, but can't recall where, or what it was. There is an alphabetical index to the series in volume 5, but of course that contains far, far more than just recipes. I made my own alphabetical index to the kitchen manual by OCRing their PDF and re-sorting it .

[Okanagancook]

Well, I find myself using this website more and more. I am using more of my cook books since signing up for the life time membership....best choice ever. Each time I use a recipe I make a note about it and rate it. If you don't use it, try it for a week.. Amazing.

[Shalmanese]

Now that the farmer's markets are getting into full swing, it's great to find some relatively obscure ingredient and instantly be able to figure out what can be made with it. I too, am glad I got the lifetime membership.

[Chris Hennes]

I guess I hadn't noticed this before, but today I was looking up a recipe for Thousand Island Dressing on EYB: what came up was the recipe from Joy of Cooking, and a list of ingredients. On looking at the recipe I was surprised and delighted to note that EYB was actually listing out ALL the ingredients, including those from sub-recipes that the main recipe references. That's awesome.

[olicollett]

I can't believe I only just discovered this.

Shame there's a couple of my favourite books (David Everitt-Matthias' Essence/Desserts) are not available but there's a great selection out there

[LindaK]

Eatyourbooks now has a mobile version of its web site--a pared down version that makes it simple and fast to search for recipes and get a list of ingredients from your smartphone. I got an email alert yesterday, as I imagine all subscribers did, and tested it out immediately. It works really well.

I've added it to my phone screen and think I'll use the site more often now. Nice work, Jane and colleagues!

[LynnFoodies]

Eatyourbooks now has a mobile version of its web site--a pared down version that makes it simple and fast to search for recipes and get a list of ingredients from your smartphone. I got an email alert yesterday, as I imagine all subscribers did, and tested it out immediately. It works really well.

I've added it to my phone screen and think I'll use the site more often now. Nice work, Jane and colleagues!

Can you share the download link for the mobile version?

Is Android version available?

Thanks

[LindaK]

It's not an app, so there's nothing to download and should work with any smartphone. When you access EYB from your phone, it will now default to the mobile version. Then I just added an icon to my phone screen--and voila, one click and you're there. There's a FAQ page on the website with more details on this.

[ElsieD]

Host's note: this post and its response were moved from the What Cookbooks Are you Actively Using? topic.

 

 

I joined Eat Your Books at the very beginning and have a lifetime membership for $50.  Now, that was a great decision because I use it all the time.  The one thing I have not been doing is keeping track of what I make using their bookmark feature.  I do that the old fashioned way with a spiral notebook always open in the kitchen where I jot down the date and what I made from which cookbook.  Took me awhile to find the name of that tomato sauce above but I only have 10 months of notes. 
 
So, looking back at the books I have been using has been fun.
 
Lately:
 
Frankies
A Matter of Taste
Local Flavours
Global Grill
D. Thompson's Thai Cooking
Will it Waffle
Foods of the World Series:  Germany
Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook
Ted Reader's Gastro Grilling.....baked sweet potatoes that are then injected with "butter love" which is a combo of spiced rum, maple syrup and butter...that is a great combo

How exactly does Eat Your Books work? I looked on their website and it seems to me that:
You enter the titles of the books that you own
It creates an Index

So say I have 5 books. I enter those titles and it creates an index of the recipes contained in those titles.
If I look at the index under "chicken" for example, it will list all the chicken recipes and in which book they can be found? If so, and you had 100 books, that list under chicken would be mighty long.

[Okanagancook]

EliseD, yes if the books you have in your library have been indexed in EYB's library then when you search for a recipe it will search those books in your library. But the search engine is quite sophisticated so you can search on a number of criteria, ie, chicken breast, mushrooms, Asian. It is well designed.
They have most popular books indexed and are active at indexing more. In fact you can index books yourself.

I find that I am using my books much more. There is probably a topic on EYB.
Plus, their daily blog has the latest food news and it will index the magazines you subscribe to automatically each month.
 

Edited April 18, 2015 by Smithy
Member request (log)

[Tere]

Bumping this to say thank you to whoever it was I saw mention this in passing recently. It's my new favourite thing, and I've spent a happy weekend entering my cookbooks (119, argh!), being pleasantly surprised that 50% were already indexed, and organising and entering my chaotic reference collection of bookmarks. I can see this being a game changer, and I am a happy Tere  

[FrogPrincesse]

I love Eat Your Books. I've been using it for years now and have hundreds of notes in there! It's a fabulous ressource when you have a lot of cookbooks (and cocktail books). 

[Okanagancook]

I think I use EYB everyday!  It makes accessing recipes in magazines easy.

i try to post notes on the recipes I make and I always check the note section before making a recipe.  I also like the news items they put together each week.

 

i got in at the very beginning with a lifetime membership for $50.  Best $50 I ever spent

[blue_dolphin]

14 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

i got in at the very beginning with a lifetime membership for $50. 

Me, too!  Money well spent!

 

It's also handy for searching foodblogs.  There are a handful that I follow and sometimes I can't remember where I saw a recipe.  

[Tere]

2 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

I think I use EYB everyday!  It makes accessing recipes in magazines easy.

i try to post notes on the recipes I make and I always check the note section before making a recipe.  I also like the news items they put together each week.

 

i got in at the very beginning with a lifetime membership for $50.  Best $50 I ever spent

 

Do they ever offer that? I know it was available in beta from this thread, but I presume not since the monthly / yearly sub started?

 

$30 membership is still a bargain though, I've subscribed to lots of the mags because I know so many of them have recipes online anyway, and it's vastly expanded my effective recipe collection without having to buy All The Books. Although I'll probably do that anyway *cough*

[LindaK]

Reading these recent comments made me realize that I hardly ever go to the EYB full website unless I'm adding a new cookbook--so I've never gotten in the habit of adding notes of my own.  I probably should, that could be really useful.

 

I'm a regular user of their mobile site, though, and mention it in case Tere or anyone else new to EYB isn't aware that the site has an app for download.  It's a minimalist version of the site, really just the search function. It lets you filter and you can see notes and reviews (but you can't add them).  I use it often to check the list of ingredients for a recipe when I'm shopping or when I need inspiration and can't/am too lazy to access a computer.

 

I also like the little "bookmarklet" widget you can add to your browser--it gives you a quick way to add an online recipe to your Bookshelf without having to subscribe to the entire site or blog.

 

 

[PassionateAmateur]

It's especially handy for cocktail books.  When you're in the mood for something new involving Green Chartreuse...

[Tere]

Yeah, I find that I search it a lot when I fancy using a particular ingredient. Last time was to find a decent mushroom risotto and a decent poached pear recipe for last Sunday's dinner. Much quicker than randomly flicking through cookbooks.