Recipe software. is it worth having?

"robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you
recommend
one etc etc.

thx
rob

I think they're worth the money. I use Big Oven now and it's just
great! I have used in the past MM, MC and a few others that didn't
come up to par.

"robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

thx
rob

Depends on how fast your computer boots up, compared to opening a book in
which you've put sticky notes marking your favorite recipes.

robustini <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available
eg "cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can
you recommend one etc etc.

I've used MC and found it awful. I now use Word exclusively. I find it
much easier and maintain an index in Excel.

The Ranger

robustini said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you
recommend one etc etc.

I don't see how anyone can answer this for you. Recipe software
provides one way of organizing information. A deep drawer and a
bookshelf provide others. What do you need to do? Define the problem
first, then you'll recognize the solution. Personally, I can't imagine
what the payoff would be for all the time it would take to accomplish a
thorough job of data entry. But that's me, not you. -aem

"Doug Kanter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Depends on how fast your computer boots up, compared to opening a book in
which you've put sticky notes marking your favorite recipes.

But not every recipe is in a book. I have hundreds that I received in
electronic form so I keep them that way.

I use Word and Access. Had I not started doing that many years ago, I'd use
Now Your Cookin' from www.ffts.com

"Dog3" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

"FREECYCLE MOM" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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Quoted message said:

"robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available
eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you
recommend
one etc etc.

thx
rob

I think they're worth the money. I use Big Oven now and it's just
great! I have used in the past MM, MC and a few others that didn't
come up to par.

I have not used Big Oven. What makes it better than MC?

You can import MC recipes without any formatting and MM. I find it
MUCH easier to use than MC.

It comes with automatic connection to the Big Oven site where lots of
recipes are available and you just have to click import.

robustini said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

thx
rob

I just use Wordpad and store them in .RTF format.

Best regards,
Bob

In article said:

robustini said:

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

I just use Wordpad and store them in .RTF format.

That's overkill! I use .TXT for stuff saved from hereabouts. ;-)
(And my "index", AFAIG, is the HDD directory structure. 8-)

Cheers, Phred.

--
[email hidden]

Phred said:

In article said:

robustini said:

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

I just use Wordpad and store them in .RTF format.

That's overkill! I use .TXT for stuff saved from hereabouts. ;-)
(And my "index", AFAIG, is the HDD directory structure. 8-)

Cheers, Phred.

I use the same method of indexing. I like .rtf cuz it looks prettier
than .txt and it's almost as easy and portable.

Bob

"robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

I dunno - what's a 'recipe'? ',;~}~

Shaun aRe

"Dog3" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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"FREECYCLE MOM" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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Quoted message said:

"Dog3" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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"FREECYCLE MOM" <[email hidden]> wrote in
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>
> "robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
> news:[email hidden]...
>> Hi All
>>
>> After looking at a few of the recipe software products available
>> eg
>> "cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you
>> recommend
>> one etc etc.
>>
>> thx
>> rob
>
> I think they're worth the money. I use Big Oven now and it's
> just
> great! I have used in the past MM, MC and a few others that
> didn't
> come up to par.

I have not used Big Oven. What makes it better than MC?

You can import MC recipes without any formatting and MM. I find it
MUCH easier to use than MC.

It comes with automatic connection to the Big Oven site where lots
of
recipes are available and you just have to click import.

I'm gonna take a look see. It sounds pretty good. Thanks for the
info.

Michael

www.bigoven.com

Your welcome

--
Helen Peagram
Freecyclemom
Ready to RV

In article said:

Phred said:

In article <[email hidden]>, zxcvbob <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

robustini wrote:

>After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
>"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
>one etc etc.

I just use Wordpad and store them in .RTF format.

That's overkill! I use .TXT for stuff saved from hereabouts. ;-)
(And my "index", AFAIG, is the HDD directory structure. 8-)

I use the same method of indexing. I like .rtf cuz it looks prettier
than .txt and it's almost as easy and portable.

Yeah. I admit it can be quite useful to have some control over at
least font size and style to make things more readable. And in these
days where HDDs are commonly 160GB the extra characters hardly matter!

I must confess too, that although I do *save* as simple text (as I
actually said 🙂, I do often later edit files of particular interest
and then save as RTF or even DOC to preserve the "prettying".

Cheers, Phred.

--
[email hidden]

Just wanted to jump in on this thread. Now, as the founder of BigOven,
I'm pretty biased, but here are some reasons why recipe software can be
a good way to organize your recipes:

* Access 150,000 recipes and import the one(s) you choose with a single
click
* Drag and drop the recipes you want to build a meal calendar for days,
months or weeks in advance
* Drag and drop recipe cards onto a shopping list
* Generate a shopping list, sorted by department (saving you time at
the grocery store) for any set of recipes
* Calculate nutrition facts (carbs, fat, fiber, calories, etc.) for any
recipe; find alterations that may be healthier
* Organize recipe photos
* Search recipes by ingredient, cuisine, free-form "tag" (e.g., "Jim
Likes", "Spicy", "Holiday", etc.) and more
* Print recipe cards
* Export recipes to HTML and/or post them on a blog
* Share recipes and recipe photos with other cooks around the world

There are several good recipe programs out there, and it's worth it to
look around.

Thanks, and happy cooking.

Steve at BigOven.com

Quoted message said:

Just wanted to jump in on this thread. Now, as the founder of BigOven,

What abt for single people?

I need recipes with amounts tailored for single people.

I don't want ANY left overs after each meal to store or
deal with.

Can recipe software help me with that?

Good question... Let's see, nearly all recipe software, including
BigOven, lets you resize ingredients from any recipe easily down to 1
or 2 servings. (Use this feature with some caution, however, since
this just mathematically reduces ingredient amounts, NOT the
instructions text -- for instance, reducing the ingredient amounts
usually -should- reduce cooking time, etc.)

BigOven has many recipes tagged by users with "Quick", "Easy", etc.
"Single dish" is a good suggestion for a group tag to add and we'll add
this as a keyword as well as allow you to search by Serving Size = 1 or
2, etc. in the future. Good thought.

Thanks

[snip]

Quoted message said:

I need recipes with amounts tailored for single people.

I don't want ANY left overs after each meal to store or
deal with.

Can recipe software help me with that?

Earlier in this thread, I wrote "What do you need to do? Define the
problem first, then you'll recognize the solution." So if your
problems are that you failed division in your arithmetic class and you
don't have a trash can, maybe you need software.

In article said:

Good question... Let's see, nearly all recipe software, including
BigOven, lets you resize ingredients from any recipe easily down to 1
or 2 servings. (Use this feature with some caution, however, since
this just mathematically reduces ingredient amounts, NOT the
instructions text -- for instance, reducing the ingredient amounts
usually -should- reduce cooking time, etc.)

LOL. Out of curiosity I tried "downsizing" on a recipe site the other
evening. [It was when I was looking for solutions to my "dry pulses
due to expire" problem, but I don't recall which site it was now.]

The site had a recipe to "Serve 6 to 8" IIRC and offered the feature
of recalculating for other quantities, so I thought I would see what
it would do if I entered "1". As expected, it simply divided down the
quantity ingredients; but for unitary things (e.g. two medium onions)
it rounded down to zero where "appropriate". ;-)

Of course, that was probably quite a practical answer! (Given the
implication that the recipe simply couldn't be reduced that much and
still expect it to be what it purported to be all about.) But it
would be interesting to know if that was what the author intended, or
whether it just happened that way because of a rather simplistic
algorithm. I don't recall any adjustments to cooking time. :-)

Quoted message said:

BigOven has many recipes tagged by users with "Quick", "Easy", etc.
"Single dish" is a good suggestion for a group tag to add and we'll add
this as a keyword as well as allow you to search by Serving Size = 1 or
2, etc. in the future. Good thought.

Cheers, Phred.

--
[email hidden]

robustini said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you

recommend

Quoted message said:

one etc etc.

thx
rob

If you like collecting recipes, it is worth having a software before
you are overwhelmed. With Shop'NCook (http://www.shopncook.com) you can
easily import recipes from your news reader or web pages, organize your
recipes in cookbooks and by categories.

Mite (author of Shop'NCook)
http://www.shopncook.com

"robustini" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi All

After looking at a few of the recipe software products available eg
"cookbook wizard or Big oven etc" Are they worth it/ can you recommend
one etc etc.

thx
rob

Any good recipe program is worth it, IMO. I love the one I use -- Now You're
Cooking. It does everything the rest of them does, maybe more: Keeps
multiple cookbooks, searches across cookbooks, categorizes, menu planner,
conversions, nutritional values, shopping lists, shopping aisles, coupon
keeper, cooking glossary, eliminates duplicate recipes from multiple
cookbooks, imports text, web page/e-mail/ng imports using a screen import
function, imports other (or exports to) major recipe programs recipes, has a
library of hundreds of thousands of recipes on its site, and prints out
recipe cards of all sizes. (When someone asks you for a copy of a favorite
recipe, you can give it to them in the size they'll want to store. That's
slicker than only having it available in .rtf or .doc file or plain
print-out for them.)

I like the NYC feature where I can paste a picture into the recipe. It's
nice being able to scan a recipe from the newspaper or magazine, at keep the
photo, too.

There's a Yahoo newsgroup for it and the program's author, Gary Hauser,
answers people's questions himself.

There should be a 60-day trial version on the web: www.ffts.com

I started collecting recipes back in the DOS days using MealMaster. All my
original recipes transferred over successfully.