Cookbook Software

Do you use any cookbook programs to store your recipes? What do you use?

I have been spending quite of time trying to organize my recipes in some sort of electronic format. I have been collecting cooking magazines and recipes for years and now have thousands of recipes that need organizing.

The first cookbook software I used was Cook’n from DVO. It was one of their first versions about 18 or so years ago. The next one I used was Mastercook and used that one for many years. I loved it! I enjoy having my recipes in a readily available format for printing. How many times has someone asked you for your recipe for something and you’ve had to go and write it out by hand? I just open my electronic cookbook and print out the recipe I need, as many copies as I want.

It’s also great when you only have a few things left in your pantry and trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Type in your main ingredients and do a search, voila, you have a whole slew of recipes to choose from.

I wanted to update my cookbook software and had been eyeballing the newest version of Cook’n for quite some time. But it was $75 and I just couldn’t justify it when I already had a perfectly good program. I finally broke down and bought Cook’n because I could share the recipes on any of my Android devices, like my phone and tablet! So no matter where I was, I had access to all of my recipes!

This is the home screen. The pictures are from a live feed of different recipe sites to include your own Pinterest feed. On the left you can see my cookbook library. Most of those cookbooks are from my Mastercook database. When I first set up my Cook’n database I had the option to import my Mastercook database. That was such a relief to me, I wasn’t looking forward to typing in all of my recipes again.

This is just one of the different themes you can use to display your recipes. You see that you can add pictures to your recipes.

As I mentioned earlier I have hundreds, if not thousands, of recipes that I’ve pulled from my different cooking magazines. Recipes that I would really love to enter in to my cookbook database. Instead of typing each of the recipes directly into the database, because it is pretty time consuming going line by line, I type them onto Notepad and then import the recipes using the .txt file option. I will admit though that they don’t always transfer over really pretty so you’re going to have to go back through and fix them up sometimes.

Got a few items in your pantry that you just don’t know how to use? Use their advanced search function and type in the ingredients. You can search your own library or search the whole internet. Above you can see I entered a search for kale, white beans and sausage. This is the first page of results.

Once you find a recipe you like you can capture that recipe and save it to Cook’n. No printing, no typing. How cool is that? I have so many recipes from the internet that I’ve printed over the years and then eventually typed them in the database. But this makes it so easy to save your favorite recipes.

One of the things that I would love to do eventually is create a cookbook of my family favorite recipes for my kids. Cook’n makes it easy.

Every recipe in my family favorite cookbook is here. You can adjust the settings on how you would like the recipes to be displayed. One recipe per page, fit as many on a page as you can, add pictures, add nutritional content, etc. The cookbook can be saved as a PDF file, which means you can edit it more later if you’d like.

My goal is to go through all of my recipes and make sure they are perfect. My kids are often complaining that my recipes aren’t written exactly the same as I make them. The recipes were entered as an original recipe from whatever source I got it from at the time, but over time I’ve tweaked and adjusted about every single recipe so they aren’t quite the same any longer. They figure I do that so no one can make the dish exactly like me. Nope, I’m just lazy and haven’t ever bothered editing the recipes because all the information is in my head. But I guess if I want to preserve a legacy I should really add my notes and adjustments.

So this is just a small part of what Cook’n offers. You can create menus and grocery lists, share your recipes through social media or email. Analyze the nutritional value of a recipe. One word of caution though, make sure you have servings listed in your recipe. Some of my recipes show they are about 4000 calories per serving! Yikes, think I need to stay away from Biscuits and Sausage Gravy!

As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons I decided to invest in Cook’n is because they have a Cook’n app, which means I can take my recipes with me wherever I go. I’ve visited my daughter and other family members and they always want the recipe for something or other. Well now I only have to pull out my phone and there it is. I also love it because I can follow a recipe using my tablet. I don’t have to print out the recipe first or lug my laptop into the kitchen.

If you are trying to find a way to organize and save your recipes, I really recommend Cook’n.