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Storing, Tracking, and Accessing Favorite Recipes


nakji

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I use Gourmet recipe managerto catalog all of the recipes that I have made. I've only used the linux version but there is a windows version as well.

Recipes that I have not yet made go into a list that I use to plan meals each week - I generally try like to make 4-5 new recipes for dinner and the others are previous favorites.

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Recipes that I have come up with first wander around on random scraps of paper and e-mails to myself, and get either handwritten in my recipe book, or now, more often, go straight to my web site--if they're good enough.

Recipes in books, I mostly remember which book they came from, if I still own the book.

And I have a couple of 3-ring binders with recipes copied from various sources--borrowed books, newspaper clippings, books I decided not to keep but that had one or two special recipes I did keep, recipes shared from friends or family. They're stored in sheet-protectors, organized roughly by category. I take a sheet with the recipe I need out, use it, and return it (ok, there is a 'to be refiled' folder too).

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I favour the "plastic cover" method, too, for cut-out recipes. I can mark my place in the recipe as I go along with whiteboard marker, so I don't miss any ingredients or steps.

Great idea...I never thought of it.

Most of my recipes are printed, but not in plastic. The ones I use all the time are in plastic. However, at Staples, for about $.70, you can buy a heavy see-through plastic cover, open on two sides, and I simply take my recipe out of its binder and slip it into the plastic cover and then using a rare-earth magnet which is on a knob, I post the recipe on my stove hood to read it.

But I do like the marker idea...

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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Hmmm. The picture could be better. It's meant to show my accordion folder of random recipes and articles that have been collected online or extracted from periodicals. I always remember the loose unbound part, so I know to look in the folder.

003.JPG

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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Having had all my original recipes and other interesting ones scrawled on paper and stuck in books for years, I've finally invested in an IPod app to enter them into. After reading the reviews, I settled on Paprika Recipe Manager. Seems good. Now to find the time to transfer them all in...

Nick Reynolds, aka "nickrey"

"The Internet is full of false information." Plato
My eG Foodblog

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  • 1 year later...

We all now have recipes as:

3x5 cards

Clippings

handwritten

cookbooks

I started a " hall of fame" notebook a few years ago, in which I listed the recipes I really liked and where they are in my "system" , such as it is. I didn't make it digital because I didn't know what software would make it easily searchable. Now it's 4 years later and I really would like to be able to search on an ingredient. I love the Eat Your Books website but I don't know an alternative to the drudgery of typing in my own recipes. I'm curious how others handle their recipe collections.

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Hi, believe it or not...I started storing my favourite recipes on my email account. This was for ease of search/access...and from anywhere in the world. For long and involved recipes, I now take a photo of the handwritten or one from a favourite cookbook using my iPhone and attach it to an email without having to type it all up.

Edited by superbadkitty (log)
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This is a great question. My frustration is that I have collected 100s of cookbooks and when I want a recipe I have no way to know which cookbook it will be in...for example, a few days ago I wanted to make tabbouleh, I pulled out some Wolfert and Roden cookbooks but I knew there were dozens of other recipes scattered among the many books.

Then a day later I heard Martha Stewart on Sirius Radio saying that she has used a program to scan all of her cookbooks into the computer and automaticallly sort them as to ingredient, dish, etc. so all she would have to do is type in tabbouleh and every single recipe in her cookbook collection would show up. She said she did this by scanning the barcodes on the books which automatically uploaded the content of the books to her computer. That is fabulous but where do I find it? She couldn't remember the name of the program. (It's very hard to believe because what would stop someone from going to a bookstore and scanning in the barcode without actually buying the book?)

Lobster.

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This is a great question. My frustration is that I have collected 100s of cookbooks and when I want a recipe I have no way to know which cookbook it will be in...for example, a few days ago I wanted to make tabbouleh, I pulled out some Wolfert and Roden cookbooks but I knew there were dozens of other recipes scattered among the many books.

Then a day later I heard Martha Stewart on Sirius Radio saying that she has used a program to scan all of her cookbooks into the computer and automaticallly sort them as to ingredient, dish, etc. so all she would have to do is type in tabbouleh and every single recipe in her cookbook collection would show up. She said she did this by scanning the barcodes on the books which automatically uploaded the content of the books to her computer. That is fabulous but where do I find it? She couldn't remember the name of the program. (It's very hard to believe because what would stop someone from going to a bookstore and scanning in the barcode without actually buying the book?)

It's probably Eat Your Books that was already mentioned upthread. I use it and it changed my life. More details on this thread.

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Not quite storing recipes, but when I'm dashing out to the shops and want to buy for a particular recipe I generally snap a pic of it on my mobile and go.

So by extension I guess the perfect software would be some sort of iPhone/Android app which lets you take a picture of a recipe, then scans/OCRs it and parses the ingredients/method automatically then stores/indexes it in some back-end server/website?

Dunno if something like that exists but that would be the ideal!

J

More Cookbooks than Sense - my new Cookbook blog!
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Not quite storing recipes, but when I'm dashing out to the shops and want to buy for a particular recipe I generally snap a pic of it on my mobile and go.

So by extension I guess the perfect software would be some sort of iPhone/Android app which lets you take a picture of a recipe, then scans/OCRs it and parses the ingredients/method automatically then stores/indexes it in some back-end server/website?

Dunno if something like that exists but that would be the ideal!

J

That's also available with Eat Your Books (and no, I don't work for them!). You can have access to ingredients in your recipes on your mobile device (as long as the book is indexed), which is handy when you are on the go.

Edited by FrogPrincesse (log)
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I use Evernote. It's an app for computers and smart phones. Shares data between the devices. You can open it in your computer or phone and type in or cut and paste recipes. I cut and paste recipes and store the link in the space provided. It has folders, tags and is searchable. You can take a photo and attach it. You can files in a folder too. It also lets you record and store audible files.

I have a Droid and there are a couple of widgets available for free that make it really easy to use on the phone.

It's got way more capability than I use. There's a free and a premium version. The free version works for me and I add a lot of things some months.

It's got several ways to share files too. I mostly use the email function to share.

It's got several other apps that make it usable too. There's a food/restaurant log and a contacts log available too.

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Two binders with copied/typed/handwritten recipes, pretty well organized by subjects; in my cookbooks--usually not a problem remembering which one; and I used to keep my own invented recipes in a nice handmade notebook, but when they're newly created, or when someone asks me for a recipe, they go up on my web site.

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I used to use MasterCook, but, it's not compatible with modern operating systems. I have a handwritten notebook of notes on works in progress and WordPerfect files of finished recipes. I have a separate Windows folder of saved recipes from various sources that I want to try.

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