What Features Do You Look For in Your Recipe Software?

Do you enjoy cooking? Do you dread going through all of those scraps of paper looking for that Vegetable and Beef Soup recipe that you make once a month? Well, I know that I do. I have absolutely TONS of hand written recipes, or I used to. Yeah, I kept the originals. They are now in a box in my garage, but they have been transformed into a marvel of technology. They're now in my Living Cookbook Recipe Software where I can quickly open them up, print a copy if I need to and save myself about 30 minutes looking through scraps of paper.

I set out on my journey to find the perfect recipe management software on the market. I looked high and low. I had an agenda. Not only did I want to organize my own personal recipes, but I wanted to be able to download recipes from the Internet into the software. I wanted to be able to create a cookbook from my own original recipes that I could either print and bind or upload to a website to sell. The software I chose had to do all of those things. I wanted the cookbooks to be in a standard cookbook format. I'm old fashioned, I like things in a familiar form. I wanted to be able to email the recipes to friends and family that always call around the holidays or when they're having a party and need a particular recipe. I keep wondering how I became the sole keeper of my mothers cornbread dressing recipe. I guess I'm the only one in the family that is organized. Also, I'm older now and I wanted to choose the font size customized to my eyes. No more having to wear glasses to read my recipes. Yeah!

One other very important piece of the puzzle was that I needed to know the exact nutritional analysis of each recipe. My brother was recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and anyone in that same boat knows that you can't just guess about what you're eating. You have to know for sure what's in the food you eat. This cookbook software has that built in. Their database is linked directly to the USDA Nutritional Tables and if the USDA makes any updates, you just go to the link in your software and upload the updates. Very important. Just be forewarned. That information my surprise you. Boy, do I ever wish that I hadn't put my Homemade Pimento Cheese recipe in there. Ouch, the fat grams. Oh well, don't they say that it's what you do most of the time that counts? I sure hope "they" are right.

This recipe software does a lot more than just the points I have covered, but these were the most important ones for me. If you're looking for cooking software, decide what your most important needs are and go from there.

Looking For Mothers Day Ideas - What About Recipe Software?

Does your Mother enjoy cooking? Is she a great cook or just learning how to cook? Either way, a great gift for her would be recipe software. She can use it to keep her own recipes organized, Have you ever seen her going through a stack of papers that have one recipe scribbled on each piece of paper looking for a specific recipe? She can also use the software to download recipes from the Internet that she finds interesting instead of printing each recipe out - there's another scrap of paper to keep track of.

Cookbook software has come a long way in the past few years. You can manage your recipe collection, plan meals, create grocery lists, and calculate the nutritional analysis for any recipe. I recommend The Living Cookbook recipe software for many reasons. This software is very easy to use and that is a very important feature for most people. You can format your cookbook to look just like a 'real' cookbook. You can make the print, or font, any size you want. No more reading glasses!

The Living Cookbook software has a 30 day free trial, so you could even download the software and "borrow" your Mothers recipes and make a family cookbook to give her for a Mothers Day gift. You could print the cookbook and take it to a local office supply store and have them laminate the front and back cover and spiral bind it for you for a reasonable price. This would be a really unique Mothers Day crafts project that you could do for her.

The software has a feature that lets you include a picture above each recipe. This could be a picture of the finished dish, or you could scan her original hand written recipe and use that instead. My Mother has passed on, and, believe me, it really is a great feeling to see her original hand writing above those cherished family recipes. We have done another one that includes recipes from my Mother, Grandmother and Aunt. It has recipes that were favorites at family reunions and we used their hand written recipes in the pictures. It really is beautiful. It would be hard to find a more personal gift.