EatYourBooks.com: search your own cookbooks for recipes online

[JoNorvelleWalker]

7 hours ago, jane@eatyourbooks said:

JoNorvelleWalker - if you would like an Excel spreadsheet of your Bookshelf, email us. Make sure you have added all the books you own to your Bookshelf before you request it - it's not something I can do repeatedly.

 

Thank you.  I may take you up on your kind offer in the future.  I'll try @nickrey's suggestion in the meantime.

 

[Susanwusan]

Hi, does anyone know what the website eatyourbooks is all about?  I'm not sure if it's worth signing up to it, it looks a bit unusual - does it give recipes from the books?

[btbyrd]

The Wired review gives a good overview.

[Cyberider]

I've been a member for years.  I think they index cookbooks so you can find recipes on a global basis.  Can't say I make much use of this but it's interesting to see all of the cookbooks that come out each week and you can enter to win a copy of some of them.  I actually got a very nice Greek cookbook in one of their giveaways a few years ago. 

[TdeV]

I have tried out the free version a few times. Generally my searches are not successful and then I write to "support" who inform me that what I'm looking for can't be done. An example is wanting to limit results based on type of cooking vessel (e.g. Instant Pot). I own a few hundred cookbooks, so this is a meaningful search criterion.

[blue_dolphin]

@Susanwusan. if you've got a bunch of cookbooks, EYB is a great way to search them all at once and the Wired reviews that @btbyrd linked is indeed a good overview.  I differ with that reviewer on the value of the notes feature as I find it very helpful to read what other cooks have to say about the recipes and try to leave my own comments when I cook something new from one of my books. 

It's helpful to access on my phone when I'm out shopping and spot a great buy on something so I can easily check recipes and see what other ingredients might be needed so I can get everything at once.

I use it pretty much every day for one reason or another, whether it's looking for a specific recipe or ideas for things using different combinations of ingredients. 

I have to say that it's never occurred to me to search based on type of cooking vessel but @TdeV certainly brings up a good point if that is important to you.

Thanks to a thread here on eG, I signed up for a lifetime membership over 10 years ago.  Maybe the best $50 I've spent. I get so much more use from my cookbooks than I did before.  The downside is that it's encouraged me to buy more of them, too!

[TdeV]

Yes, if I'd spent $50 for a lifetime membership I would have thought that a good deal too. I keep trying out the free version because I *want* to want a subscription! 😄 But so far, no dice.

[blue_dolphin]

38 minutes ago, TdeV said:

Yes, if I'd spent $50 for a lifetime membership I would have thought that a good deal too. I keep trying out the free version because I *want* to want a subscription! 😄 But so far, no dice.

Nope, not a good fit for you.  Don’t do it! 
Perfect for me, though - if they ended my membership, I’d gladly pony up the $30/year, about the cost of 1 new cookbook, to get tons of use from the 100s I have.

[Honkman]

Very helpful if you have many cookbooks. Recently I wanted to look up what shrimp taco recipes I had at home in my cookbooks and it takes about 10 seconds and than you can browse and decide on the best one based on what else you have at home. In addition, it has links to 10000+ free online recipes from cookbooks you might have not in your collection which are again searchable by different ingredients etc.

[ElsieD]

14 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Nope, not a good fit for you.  Don’t do it! 
Perfect for me, though - if they ended my membership, I’d gladly pony up the $30/year, about the cost of 1 new cookbook, to get tons of use from the 100s I have.

 

Can you "import" your Kindle books?

[blue_dolphin]

11 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

Can you "import" your Kindle books?

 

I'm not sure what you meant by "import." EYB just includes a listing of recipe ingredients but does not include the actual recipes.  It does include links to online recipes (from the cooking blogs, magazines and newspaper columns that they index) but that can't be done with books.  

I enter my Kindle books the same way as my paper books when I get a new one.  I mark them with a "Kindle" bookmark so I can search just the Kindle books.  It's been handy when I've been traveling and asked to cook something. 

I believe there are ways to bulk upload lists of books.  In another thread, @JoNorvelleWalker described making a list of her Kindle books to do that:

On 11/5/2017 at 2:34 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

For entering my Kindle library I went to my digital orders page on amazon.  I clicked on each title, then went to the print edition listing and copied the book's ISBN into a text file.  I pasted the text file into EYB.  This worked.  I couldn't think of an easier way.  I suppose I could have directly pasted each ISBN into EYB but I was afraid of losing all my work.

 

[ElsieD]

@blue_dolphin  Are you saying that if I enter my cookbooks and if a do a search on them for say, fish, the actual recipes will not show up?  Only the list of ingredients?  If so, does that also apply to recipes on blogs when one does a search on those?  I have gone to the site but I need to study it more to make sense of it.  

[blue_dolphin]

2 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Are you saying that if I enter my cookbooks and if a do a search on them for say, fish, the actual recipes will not show up?  Only the list of ingredients? 

Correct.  It's basically just a way to search all your books at once.  And it lets you perform more detailed searches than most cookbook indices support, like you can search for recipes for fish that also include cooking greens and are Chinese while excluding soups. You only see the ingredients (there's a list of "cupboard" ingredients like salt, pepper, etc. that aren't listed unless used in significant amounts or named in the recipe title)  then you have to go to your book for the recipes.  

 

12 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

If so, does that also apply to recipes on blogs when one does a search on those? 

Yes, ingredients only, except that there will be a link to the online recipe

 

In all cases, you can also see if there are any accompaniments suggested in the book and whether there are notes attached to the recipes.  Notes might be added at indexing to alert you to acceptable substitutions, overnight steps, etc. or they may be added by members who have cooked the recipes and added their comments. 

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

Correct.  It's basically just a way to search all your books at once.  And it lets you perform more detailed searches than most cookbook indices support, like you can search for recipes for fish that also include cooking greens and are Chinese while excluding soups. You only see the ingredients (there's a list of "cupboard" ingredients like salt, pepper, etc. that aren't listed unless used in significant amounts or named in the recipe title)  then you have to go to your book for the recipes.  

 

Yes, ingredients only, except that there will be a link to the online recipe

 

In all cases, you can also see if there are any accompaniments suggested in the book and whether there are notes attached to the recipes.  Notes might be added at indexing to alert you to acceptable substitutions, overnight steps, etc. or they may be added by members who have cooked the recipes and added their comments. 

 

Thank you for that explanation.  It confirms that it is not what I am looking for.  I'm looking to replace Evernote with something else.  Ever since they "upgraded" it to something "better" I can't print from it unless I buy their "premium" version.  I don't mind paying for something but I resent it when they upgrade something and take away an existing feature in the process.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

Correct.  It's basically just a way to search all your books at once.  And it lets you perform more detailed searches than most cookbook indices support, like you can search for recipes for fish that also include cooking greens and are Chinese while excluding soups. 

 

How do you exclude soups?

 

[blue_dolphin]

7 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

How do you exclude soups?

 

See here:

Quote

 

1. Select the ingredient or category from the Category Filters and add it by clicking on the + sign. 
2. Click on the + circle, it changes to a - circle and the filter turns black which indicates this ingredient or category will be excluded from your search.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

See here:

 

 

I never realized there was such a thing as filters.

 

[blue_dolphin]

10 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I never realized there was such a thing as filters.

 

[ElsieD]

I'm going to sign up for the free subscription so I can at least see how it works.  I realize the free version is limited to 5 books but I'll just put in 5 baking books.  If I do a search on cupcakes or oatmeal cookies I can see what it gives me.  Thanks to @blue_dolphin's explanations I think I know how it works.  I'm still looking for a good recipe app.

[blue_dolphin]

9 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

I'm going to sign up for the free subscription so I can at least see how it works.  I realize the free version is limited to 5 books but I'll just put in 5 baking books.  If I do a search on cupcakes or oatmeal cookies I can see what it gives me.  Thanks to @blue_dolphin's explanations I think I know how it works.  I'm still looking for a good recipe app.

I believe that with the free version, you can also search any of the online sources EYB indexes.  To do that, I choose "online recipes" under the "Library" tab, rather than the "My Bookshelf" tab which would only search the books I've added. That will allow you to play around with the search features a bit more than with just 5 books.

[ElsieD]

I signed for the free version and entered 5 of my cookbooks.  I was so impressed I signed up for the premium version.  I have entered my baking, ice cream and bread books and I'm asking myself why did I wait so long to subscribe to this?  I have lots more to enter and lots more to learn but @blue_dolphin 's posts will be a great help.  I also need to read through this topic.

[ElsieD]

I did end up joining and   https://app.ckbk.com/#     has since merged with them, giving one access to a whole new slew of cookbooks, magazines etc.  I can now access 955 cookbooks, 802 magazines, 17 blogs and 196,971 recipes.  More than I'll ever need.  I'm still feeling my way around this web site but I sure do like it so far.  The premium membership equates to the cost of buying 2 new cookbooks a year which is chump change given the info you can access.  I also had reason to deal with their customer service lately and it, too, is top-notch.

[Smithy]

On 7/27/2023 at 4:15 PM, ElsieD said:

I did end up joining and   https://app.ckbk.com/#     has since merged with them, giving one access to a whole new slew of cookbooks, magazines etc.  I can now access 955 cookbooks, 802 magazines, 17 blogs and 196,971 recipes.  More than I'll ever need.  I'm still feeling my way around this web site but I sure do like it so far.  The premium membership equates to the cost of buying 2 new cookbooks a year which is chump change given the info you can access.  I also had reason to deal with their customer service lately and it, too, is top-notch.

 

So... if I take the special offer from your link, that'll give me access to EYB and this new site for a discount this first year? Do I have that right?

 

(To be fair, the subscription offer is in line with any magazine subscription, so I should stop kicking myself for not signing up for EYB when a Lifetime Membership was something like $100.)

[blue_dolphin]

On 7/27/2023 at 2:15 PM, ElsieD said:

I did end up joining and   https://app.ckbk.com/#     has since merged with them, giving one access to a whole new slew of cookbooks, magazines etc.

 

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

So... if I take the special offer from your link, that'll give me access to EYB and this new site for a discount this first year? Do I have that right?

 

I didn't know they had merged so I'd be interested in more info on that as well.  

Back In May, both announced that they had "linked up" so subscribers to both services could easily use EYB to search both the books they've entered into EYB and all the books that CKBK has licensed. EYB had added links direct to the CKBK recipes for the 400 books they had already indexed and were in the process of indexing the rest.  Here's the announcement from EYB and from CKBK.  At the time, CKBK was offering EYB members 25% off on the first year of a CKBK membership and EYB was offering CKBK members an extra month free trial.  

From what @ElsieD said, it sounds like there was a more recent merger.  

 

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

I should stop kicking myself for not signing up for EYB when a Lifetime Membership was something like $100

Probably the best $50 I've spent!

[ElsieD]

On 7/28/2023 at 9:59 PM, Smithy said:

 

So... if I take the special offer from your link, that'll give me access to EYB and this new site for a discount this first year? Do I have that right?

 

(To be fair, the subscription offer is in line with any magazine subscription, so I should stop kicking myself for not signing up for EYB when a Lifetime Membership was something like $100.)

 

It looks like it, yes.  I assume you are talking about the $40 gift offer?  Sorry to be so pokey in responding.  I should not have said "merged with".  @blue_dolphin's word "link" s correct.  As far as I know, they have not merged.

 

As an aside, I wanted to do something with ramen noodles the other day.  I just typed "ramen chicken" in the search bar and a recipe from Recipe Tin Eats popped up, which I made.  Sure was handier than going through cookbooks, blogs and Mr. Google.

Edited July 30, 2023 by ElsieD
Added last paragraph (log)