Recomendations for recipe organizers for the computer (ingredients, meals, butter)

[movingtohouston]

I was wondering if anyone uses a recipe organizer on their computer. I am looking for an easy to use database where I can store and organize all my recipes. I am not computer saavy enough anymore to create my own.

Any and all recomendations are appreciated.

[darling876]

i use my microsoft office onenote application.. it's basically a paperless planner

[ivanabacowboy]

I use MasterCook.

It's pretty easy to do the "basics". Of course it can do plenty of "fancy" stuff too, but to get a recipe in it and print it or search it or whatever is pretty effortless.

I love it. I have many more recipes than I could probably use in 5 lifetimes in it. But here is the part I love: I know I had a brownie recipe with butterscotch chips for example. Rather than sifting through a few hundred cookbooks or recipe cards or word documents, I hit a "search" button, type "brownie butterscotch" and in no time I have a list of every single recipe out of thousands that contain those.

I can put together a menu for say the week and hit 1 button to print it out, print out the recipes that go with it, and print a shopping list for all the ingredients. I can take the printout in the kitchen as I cook, and then just pitch it grease stains and all when I am finished.

If you have a bit of time, you can build what is called a "pantry". You tell the program what ingredients you have. Press a button. It will tell you which recipes you can make. In a similar way, it can also do budgeting for you-you tell it how much stuff costs, it tells you how much to expect to be dinged at the register when you go shopping for your weekly meals.

It does nutritional analysis.

You can print a cookbook of your recipes and customize the print design.

I can import recipes and pictures off the internet into MasterCook.

I can share files of entire cookbooks with people by email. There are many groups on Yahoo for example that exchange cookbook files.

I tried most of the other recipe softwares out there, and came back to MasterCook every time.

[movingtohouston]

Thanks for your input.

I was looking at Mastercook and the living cookbook. Mastercook was the one I was leaning towards.

[movingtohouston]

Originally Posted by movingtohouston

Thanks for your input.

I was looking at Mastercook and the living cookbook. Mastercook was the one I was leaning towards.

Well now have another question. Do you have Vista on your computer. I have been reading a lot of info on the internet that says it's incompatable with Vista and other people say it works but you have to do this whole complicated process to get it to work.

[TexasHorseLady]

I second MasterCook. I started using it when I was a personal chef, and I still have my old version from then, and even that one rocks.

In fact, I'm likely going to buy the newest version soon (or get someone to give it to me for Mother's Day ) just to get the new features, but it's great for just keeping track of - and sharing easily - my recipes.