I’m totally attached to my iPhone. I use it for just about everything: checking email, text messaging, taking daily photos, checking the weather, tracking calories, catching up on blogs — and so much more. Sometimes even talking on the phone.
While these are all frequent activities for me, they aren’t necessarily my favorite way of using my iPhone. My favorite? iTunes cooking and recipe apps!
I haven’t bought all the cooking app’s out there and I probably won’t. There are a few I don’t have, but have strongly considered buying. Such as Jamie Oliver’s app. I think that would be a good one to have. I’ve also considered getting Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food app (it’s only 99¢). I just haven’t made the commitment to either one. But, I do have several on my iPhone that I use frequently, so I thought I would share some of my current Top 5 Cooking and Recipe Apps favorites with you.
#1 – Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything® App
This is by far my most favorite app. I like it so much that even when I am bored (like waiting in the car for one of the kids), I will open it up and read the various recipes and information in it. I think it’s a must-have for anyone who wants to cook better food for their family at home. It’s perfect for any home cook – whether you are a beginner or more experienced.
The app includes 2,000 recipes and 400 how-to illustrations from Mark Bittman’s bestselling cookbook of the same name. And by that I mean, every recipe in his book, is in the app! Talk about a great deal…I didn’t hesitate to buy it.
#2 – Ratio by Michael Ruhlman
Ratio is based upon Michael Ruhlman’s best selling cookbook, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking and it’s my second favorite iPhone cooking app. To be honest, I sometimes think this app is a bit above me, but because I personally want to have greater control in my recipes, I like it.
I’ve already learned quite a bit from Ratio. For example, quick breads. Seeing the ratio in the app was an a-ha moment for me. With the ratio, I can come up with SO many different quick breads recipes. Just like the description for the app states, “when you know a ratio, you don’t know a recipe, you know 1,000”. That’s exactly what I want.
#3 – Simply Recipes
I don’t know if this really counts as an app or not. I guess not? But, Simply Recipes is one of my top favorites for recipe blogs and one of the most popular food blogs on the internet. The coolest thing is that there is a mobile version — which means a simplified version of the entire website that displays nicely on your phone.
To make viewing the Simply Recipe mobile version easy on your iPhone (just go to this web address via Safari on your iPhone: http://simplyrecipes.com/m/ ) you can “bookmark” it. To bookmark, click on the little plus sign (+) at the bottom of your screen, and click “Add to Home Screen”. This will give you the little square icon that you see in my image at the top of this post. By tapping on that, it will automatically take you to the Simply Recipes mobile website where you can view the featured recipe, recent recipes, recipes by type, or the full site. It’s very cool.
(I’m pretty sure this mobile version of Simply Recipes can be used on other cell phones with web browsing capabilities.)
#4 – Epicurious
My 3rd favorite cooking app for iphone is Epicurious. It’s one of my favorites because 1) it has lots of great recipes and 2) it’s free. You put the two of those things together and that makes is a favorite of mine – easily.
I mostly use this app for browsing the recipe collections – lately I’ve been checking out their Ice Cream recipes (Ice Cream Sundaes with Chocolate-Coffee Sauce, anyone?) and their Grilling Entrees (gotta try the Grilled Turkey Burgers with Cheddar and Smoky Aioli!). Sometimes I just want something new to try and I can usually find something to inspire me on the Epicurious app.
#5 – allRecipes.com DinnerSpinner
I’ve always enjoyed the allrecipes.com website, so one of the very first recipe apps that I downloaded was the free allrecipes.com DinnerSpinner. There is two versions of it – a free version with limited capabilities (that’s what I have) and a pro version which is about $2.99. On the website, you can compare the two side by side to find out which version is best for you.
Overall, the spinner aspect is fun and it’s never failed to give me an idea for dinner when I feel totally uninspired. Lots of great recipes to choose from.
So, for this week’s Works For Me Wednesday: iPhone cooking apps! I can’t wait to see the direction that food related apps go in the future, but I bet they will get bigger and better as time goes on.
What are you favorite cooking or recipe apps? I’m always looking to hear opinions on what are good ones out there. Leave me a comment and let me know.
(Be sure to check out Works-For-Me Wednesday to see what’s working for other bloggers!)
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