Tuesday, August 10, 2010

the best iPhone App ever!!

Ok well maybe not the best every made but this is definitely one of the BEST apps that I have on my phone (aside from games).

I have been in a habit for a long time of keeping my recipes on my computer in a word document. If I need a new recipe I will have a friend or family member email it to me and then paste it into the every growing word document. (For those who want to know yes the document is impressively organized into different categories and subcategories that includes a table of contents). The pages eventually get printed off and added to my binder (along with any other recipes I collect).

However, I have a recurring problem of not having toner or paper in my printer (or a general desire not to walk downstairs to print the same recipe for the umpteen time).

As such my solution has been to email myself the recipe which has worked well but I figured because of the saying "well there's an app for that" there MUST be an app to keep my recipes on my iPhone. Well guess what - there is LOTS of them.

I have an entire folder devoted to cooking with the following free apps:
MyStarbucks
Jullan
Food Network
CampRecipes by Coleman
AllRecipes
RecipeFinder by McCromick

they are all really good for looking for other peoples recipes. I also purchased:

How to Cook Everything - which is amazing.

However, I still wanted something to use my own recipes so I downloaded

RecipeHolder

which is ok - it comes with a free preloaded recipes and then the ability to add your own and have your own pictures. I am not a huge fan of this app - it is good but I do not like how the instructions are on a completely different screen than the ingredients. I have also had problems add in instructions that seem to be too long for the field.

I then purchased

MealBoard


and I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS APP!!

I was hesitant to purchase it for $2.99 at first (ok compared to the $0.99 that most of my apps are this is expensive)

But I love it for many many reasons:

1. I can enter my recipes in online and then upload/download to my iPhone (which means that mass editing is easy!!)
2. I can use it as a meal planner and to keep my recipes which is AMAZING
3. You can create your meal plan and then have it automatically create your shopping list and then you can ADD to your shopping list the non-grocery items (e.g., toilet paper) to the list

THEN you can email the shopping list and meal plan and it is SORTED by areas in the store.

OK and you can even email recipes to friends at the click of a button.

Downside:
1. you can't add pictures (ok not huge but it would be a nice touch)
2. It doesn't cook the food for you... seriously those are the only things I do not like about the app.

I also have created a "left over" food item for nights when I plan on just having left overs and it comes preloaded with an "eating out" item so that you can load those into the meal planner. It is also very very easy to move meals from one day to the next if you need to rearrange your plans mid week..You can also plan for more than a week at a time (nice nice nice)


Truly I am in LOVE!

(i would also add that you can use this on the iPod touch and I am guessing on the iPad as well but I am not sure).