If you love to cook, then you probably fall into one of two camps: those that go on a large, thoughtful shopping trip once a week (gatherers), or those that keep the staples on hand, then pick up fresh ingredients as needed (hunters). The former are generally industrious, suburban critters, diligently planning and squirreling away ingredients for the coming week; the latter are like urban wolfs, their ravenous sites set on the Whole Foods fish counter on the way home from work.
Then there are the scavengers. This wily class leaves work late—too exhausted to shop—only to come home to an avocado, a box of fettuccini, some eggs, brie and two empty ice cube trays. How can I combine these things? The culinary scavenger thinks. I find myself in this position more than I’d like to admit. As such, I whole-heartedly embrace the advent of recipe generators, ingredient search engines and other killer cooking apps.
No matter your shopping style, you can reap the rewards of these technological advancements. There is definitely an application for you.
Recipezaar Sifter
Excellent for hunters, gatherers and scavengers alike, this engine allows you to search through 378,000 member-contributed recipes by ingredient, or theme. Hot searches include chicken, picnic, zucchini and meatloaf. So whether you’re searching salsa because you’re contemplating buying a gallon from Costco and want to work it into as many of the week’s recipes as possible, or just because it’s one of the three items currently in your fridge, this feature will give you leg up.
Epicurious Shopping List iPhone App
Certain to be favored more by the gatherers among us; this application leads from idea to execution in three easy steps. First, search through over 30,000 recipes and select the ones you want. Second, Epicurious compiles all the ingredients you’ll need into a handy, comprehensive shopping list; you can even check off ingredients as you shop. Third, once you’re in your kitchen, you can read recipes right of the phone. The future is now.
Woman’s Day Mobile
Much like the Epicurious app, this feature allows users to search recipe ideas and create a “dynamic” shopping list (sounds action packed, I like it). Plus, it also incorporates tips and tools, and editorial from the WomansDay.com staff.
Dishbase for Mac
Dishbase is a free program, powered by dishbase.com, which is downloaded to your computer desktop. You can search from a large list of recipes without even going online. The software is well organized and includes full images. It seems a little old school (most users, I think, would just as soon go online), but I imagine it’s like 2001 for the recipe-scrapbook set.
Kitchenbug.com
Kitchenbug is a social recipe application. It allows you to create, bookmark and share recipes in a very seamless way. The header advertises: “Share your recipes. Organize your cookbook. Keep your recipes in one place, share them with the rest of the world. This is probably my favorite food technology. Whether you’re a gatherer, hunter or scavenger, a bug seems to be the peak of foodie/techie evolution.
It seems the “web” is now “world wide,” and there are tons of great applications out there. If you think I’ve missed any, please post them below.
