Let’s take a look at this fantastic plugin, and a quick walkthrough on how to add and display your recipes.

Display Options

Recipress can output your recipes in a variety of places, with the default being on single post pages only just after the main content (if there is any). If you want the full recipe to appear in search results or the index, archives, etc you can do all of that.

There are 3 main display styles to choose from – light, dark, and textured – so it should suit most blogs. Though I haven’t tried, I imagine you can edit the individual CSS files if you wanted to change them, though there is no specific “upload custom CSS” option.

Custom Taxonomies

Taxonomies are added for ingredients, cuisine style, course, and skill level – but you needn’t use the latter 3 if you don’t want them. The plugin comes with about 18 ingredients pre-programmed for you, but adding more is as easy as… pie?

Adding A Recipe

You’ll find a new custom section on your post edit screen, and ticking the “Add a Recipe to this post?” checkbox will enable the recipe editor.

It’s broken down into 3 parts. The first is some basic meta about the recipe – prep time, yield – that sort of stuff.

Next up are the ingredients. The ingredient names are all contained within a separate taxonomy, so they work like tags. As you add your own archive of ingredients, they will appear when you start typing the first few letters.

Creating them as a whole taxonomy also means you can do things like list all recipes with “chilli”, or show an ingredient cloud widget. Other than that, it’s easy to add amounts, notes, re-arrange the order or ingredients, etc.

Finally comes the instructions which are broken into steps. Each step can have an individual photo added. At the time of writing this, I did have a small bug with the latest jQuery – if you find the upload image dialog goes blank after clicking “Use this image“, open up your the wp-content/plugins/recipress/js folder, and replace the contents of back.js with the code from this pastebin. Hopefully the author will release an update soon to fix that officially, but this will suffice for now.

I should also add that you need to upload images for the recipe in the size you’d like them to display – it takes the original URL rather than the thumbnail or medium sizes. The plugin could do with some auto-resizing options, but to work around this either resize before you upload, or add the following CSS rules to your theme’s style.css

/* Change to the width of your post section, this refers to the step pictures */
#recipress_recipe.recipress-recipress img {
width: 450px ;
height: auto ;
margin: 10px 0 ;
}
/* Assume thumbnail size of 150px for first image in recipe */
#recipress_recipe.recipress-recipress img.wp-post-image{
width: 150px;
height: auto;
margin: 10px 0;
}

To set the “finished recipe” image, just use the standard WordPress featured image. You can adjust this in the Recipress options if you’d like to use a different image though.

You should end up with something like this:

Summary

The display style of this plugin is beautiful, and adding recipes honestly couldn’t be simpler. There some great widgets included, and if you plan on writing a lot then use of a full custom taxonomy for ingredients is really innovative.

On the downside, there’s a few bugs as I’ve outlined already. Also, the output is mostly hRecipe formatted for rich snippet data, but it’s missing quite a few crucial parts, so the implementation isn’t complete and Google doesn’t parse it as such. This should be an easy fix though, so hopefully the author will update soon. There’s a Pro version in the works according to the support site.

What do you think? Will you be posting some recipes for us?

Tech-related recipes can be quite a challenge. I’m not going to say they’re easy. But won’t it be worth the effort when all your friends think you’re a genius for making awesome superhero cupcakes or Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters for your next party? Here are some ideas for geeky-inspired recipes, some easier, some harder, but all of them mouth watering!

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

If you’re a fan, or if your friends are fans, or if you all just like trying new drinks, here is an interesting recipe for the intriguing drink from those legendary books – the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

The recipe includes the original text from the book – the original “recipe” for the Gargle Blaster a la Douglas Adams. There are probably many adaptations of the recipe to the real world, but this is one of the most detailed ones I’ve found.

If you’re a bit more ambitious about Adams, you can try this whale-crushed-petunia-pot cake. The recipe walks you through creating a true-to-form landscape for your whale, and of course the whale itself and this believable crushed petunia pot made of a chocolate cupcake.

Tetris Pixels

Why Tetris Pixels? Well, they’re just similar concepts. And if you like Tetris (or pixels, and who doesn’t like pixels!), be sure to try making these Tetris brownies.

You can serve these as individual brownies and then have all your friends try forming them into lines without smearing frosting everywhere. This could make for an exciting party!

Another option in the same department is making these pixel cookies. This is an image-rich instructable on making pixelized butter cookies. The cool thing about this recipe is that you can use it to make pretty much any shape you want inside the cookies. It’s the method that’s being explained here, and you can use it to let your imagination run wild.

Pancakes

If you love pancakes, you’re going to love Jim’s Pancakes. This guy makes pancakes in any form and size you can imagine, while sharing some of his tips and thoughts on each one. These are not exactly recipes, but if you know how to make a pancake batter, you can sure get some inspiration for these. For example, this is Jim’s iPhone 4S pancake.

You can also check out his Millennium Falcons and AT-AT Walkers. A bit hard to make, maybe, but truly awesome. And who knows, maybe you can find your secret pancake skills thank to these!

Superheroes and Other Heroes

I don’t know about you, but I adore superheroes of all kinds. Well, preferably of the Superman or Batman kind, but others will do too. If you share this same love, your next project can be making superhero gingerbread men.

This recipe doesn’t include trivialities such as how to make the actual gingerbread men, but you can look at the intricate decorations and try to make your own superhero designs. Even copying these same designs could be a great way to make your very own superheroes.

If this seems a bit much, you can try these simpler superhero cupcakes. Instead of featuring the whole superhero, these make do with their signs and symbols, and are therefore much easier to make.

The same blogger who made these also made some simple Star Trek cupcakes you could try, or if you’re really driven, this awesome Godzilla cake (which I would love to make myself).

Angry Birds

A post like this will not be complete without an Angry Birds section. Not because Angry Birds is so important, but there are some Angry Birds recipes out there which are simply too cute to miss. If you’re into cupcakes, try these awesome Angry Birds cupcakes recipe, which includes detailed instructions on making beaks out of slices orange candies and bellies out of sliced marshmallow.

Alternatively, you can try these Angry Birds cake pops, which are possibly harder to make, but are bound to impress your friends and are way more fun to hold and eat. This recipe is not as image-rich, so you’ll have to use your imagination some.

Odds And Ends

If all these specific things are not hitting the spot, and you’re looking for something a bit more general, how about trying these relatively simple computer cupcakes?

These might look complicated to make, but it’s actually simpler than it seems when looking at the actual recipe.

On an entirely different note, you can also decide to go out of your way and make iPhone cupcakes. There are lots of pictures of these around the web, but not a lot of actual recipes. This, too, is not a very detailed recipe, but contains more details than others, including an actual cupcake recipe and some tips on making the sugar decorations.

If you’re looking for more great things to make, check out:

• 10 Brilliant But Creepy Halloween Recipes To Spook Out Your Friends
• 5 DIY Angry Birds-Inspired Crafts For The Upcoming Holidays

Did you make any awesome recipe you’d like to share? Are you planning on making some of these for your next party? Share in the comments!

Image credit: Vanilla Moment

Today’s Picks

As you launch the add-on, you are greeted with a gigantic macro shot of something edible (and hopefully appetizing). For example, here’s a Banana-maple tower:

This looks tiny because it is a screenshot of my full screen, resized to fit the blog. But you can see how much space the image takes up. But it’s not just an image:

You can read basic facts about the dish, and then click through to the recipe (we’ll look at the recipe display in a moment).  In case you don’t like the first dish, you can easily scroll between four other options. Since it’s an add-on, the large images all load instantly, and the whole thing feels very responsive and instant.

What’s Available

Let’s focus on the header for a moment:

Here you can clearly see the scroller used to flip between “Today’s picks“. Other entries include recipes (the bulk of the app, really), videos, and ingredients. There’s one more option to the right of favorites, which is subscribing to the BBC GoodFood newsletter. Let’s take a quick look through each of these categories.

Recipes

The initial recipe display shows each recipe as a “card” with an image and some quick facts. One thing I like about the app is that it’s very straightforward and honest about the amount of recipes available. While websites like Allrecipes.com boast an endless supply of crowd-sourced recipes, BBC GoodFood is almost like a small cookbook in your browser, with a limited and curated collection of recipes.

The top bar lets you instantly filter recipes by type, as well as by “Less than 200 calories“, “healthy classics“, etc. You can also do a custom search, if you’re after something very specific:

But realize you may not find what you’re after, due to the relatively small number of recipes the app currently offers. For example, when I searched for a chicken-based Moroccan dish that would serve six, the app found nothing. It did find a recipe when I was searching for four servings, though, so I know there is a Moroccan chicken recipe.

I wish the app could just scale ingredient lists up and down automatically by the number of servings I’d like to make – this is something Allrecipes does today, and doesn’t seem like a very difficult feat to accomplish.

Individual Recipe Display

Once you found a recipe you like, it is time to learn how to make it. The individual recipe display screen is simple and informative, with a single image of the recipe (which you can enlarge), an ingredient list, and a list of instructions. One niggle is that the typography is a bit on the tiny side, so if you want to use it as a reference while cooking, you may want to zoom in (Chrome’s zoom feature works within the add-on, so you can just hit Ctrl and +).

Cookery Videos

The video section currently has just a handful of videos about basic cooking techniques. This is one part of the app that actually didn’t work for me. The video did buffer, but I could not get it to play. Definitely underdeveloped, but it shows potential.

Healthy Ingredients

The Healthy Ingredients section lists ten different ingredients, each with nutritional information and buying, preparation and storage tips. It’s a short list, but each ingredient has a hi-resolution image and thoughtful information.

Final Thoughts

BBC GoodFood looks like a promising add-on. What I like best about it is that it feels very curated – it feels as though the recipes and all content were carefully edited. The downside is that there is not a lot of content, but if you are looking for oodles of content, there are plenty of recipe websites out there.

I have been hearing more and more people talk about living the vegan lifestyle. As someone who closely follows the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, I was surprised how many fighters choose to live vegan. At first, I was unsure about what made the vegan lifestyle different from a vegetarian, but I looked into it, and it is quite a difference.

I have come to realize that being a true vegan consists of not using any animal products, and it is much more than not eating certain things. I can tell you right now that I am not a vegan, but I am always fascinated with learning more about other lifestyles and what they consist of.

If you are interested in finding out more about the vegan way of life, and are perhaps interested in adopting it yourself, than I have some iPhone apps that will help you out a great deal. These apps offer everything from basic information on what it is like to be a vegan, recipes and ways to get more active in the vegan community and make a difference.

Be Vegan

This application is a good starting point for someone looking to get into the vegan lifestyle. It offers some basic recipes, though not as many as some of the other apps we will talk about later. Where this app shines is in their news and stories about things that are happening in the vegan world. They cover all the latest news and dig into the science behind being a vegan.

VegScan

This app allows users to scan barcodes for items while shopping and find out if the item is vegan and vegetarian. It is a user maintained app, so some items will not be there. You can add them if you know whether the item is or is not vegan. You earn points for adding items, so it makes it something of a game. The scanning worked well when I tested it, and even if the item wasn’t listed, it always detected the bar code.

Whole Foods Recipes

This is an application from the Whole Foods Stores. This application is not dedicated to Vegans, but it does have a tremendous database of Vegan recipes. By simply clicking on “Special Diets”, you can show only vegan recipes. They also have special picks for all kinds of other lifestyles if vegan is not your thing. If you shop at Whole Foods this is a must have app because you can quickly add all the items in a recipe to your shopping list, and have it readily available the next time you go to the store.

VeganYumYum Mobile

YumYum is one of the more popular online recipe boards, so it only makes sense that they would have a vegan version. This app is simple and straightforward. It is a list of all the vegan recipes on their website. There are well over 50 recipes on there. Each recipe has pictures, a list of ingredients and systematic instructions for preparation. They also have the ability to add a recipe to your favorites, so if you find something you love and want to make again, it will be just a couple of taps away.

PETA

The official PETA app has everything you need to know about helping animals. If choosing not to eat any animal products is not enough, and you want to take it to the next level than the PETA app has just what you need. It offers all the latest issues that need to be addressed. You can take action on any of the alerts and earn points and rankings. If you are looking to step up your involvement, check out this application. Even if you are not a vegan and you just want to help animals this is a great app to help you get involved.

Conclusion

With these applications, you will be ready to make the lifestyle change, if you should choose to do so. Obviously, being a vegan is not for everyone, including myself. If you think it might be for you, check out these applications and see if they help move you in the right direction.

What do you think of these free iPhone apps and if you tried them, did they help you. Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Cooking and eating the same things every year can get rather boring. True, holidays are all about traditions, but this doesn’t mean you can’t innovate! So check out these 5 fantastic recipe websites which will provide you with all the inspiration you need for this holiday season.

Epicurious

Epicurious is a a true foodie heaven, be it a holiday or not. But when it comes to holidays, Epicurious has you covered no matter what you are celebrating. The holiday index includes almost every holiday you can think of, and for each one you can browse recipes, menus or a complete holiday guide.

When you choose “recipes” or “menus”, you can then browse them by popular ingredients, by dishes (when browsing recipes), browse only vegetarian recipes and so on. The complete guides also include entertaining tips, gifts and wine.

The holiday recipes are not all from Epicurious itself, but come from a variety of different sources. You can view everything without being a member of Epicurious, but if you sign up for a free account you can save recipes, share them, rate and review them and create personal notes.

Pioneer Woman

I have written about The Pioneer Woman Cooks in the past, but I could not write a recipe article without mentioning this wonderful blog again. The Pioneer Woman Cooks is a beautifully crafted blog for your everyday cooking needs, which also boasts a fantastic holiday section.

While not featuring as many holidays as Epicurious, if you’re celebrating Christmas or Thanksgiving, you’re all set. The recipes include entertaining stories about life in the rural United States, and are accompanied by plenty of good photos.

Definitely a place to visit if you’re looking for something with a bit more of a personal touch.

SheKnows

SheKnows deals with much more than food and recipes. In fact, it deals with all the things they believe women should like. Despite the unfortunate name, SheKnows features a great holiday recipe section.

The recipes do not include a huge amount of images, so if you’re the visual type, you might find this recipe collection to be a bit too “texty”. There is no easy way to screen certain types of recipes, but there are a lot of them. So put on your cooking hat and start scrolling for your next awesome holiday dish!

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart is one name that’s been rather hard to miss in the past two decades. And when looking for good recipes, it’s still a name you can’t ignore. Martha’s website includes a big holiday section featuring all your usual holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah and Mother’s day.

You’re not going to find only recipes here, but also decorations, gift ideas and activities for kids. One of the most inspiring sections is the food gift ideas. If you’re a foodie, or if your friends or family are, you know there’s sometimes nothing better than a holiday gift which is also edible.

Here you will learn how to make cookie compotes, fancy fruitcake, foolproof fudge and much more. They all comes with wrapping and decorating instructions, so you can try to mimic the beautiful little gifts you can see in the picture. There’s even a whole section for gingerbread houses!

Taste Of Home

Taste of Home is another large food & recipe magazine, which provides everything from recipes, videos, and forums to an actual cooking school. But today is all about holidays: Taste of Home features an impressive holiday & celebration section, which includes all your usual holidays, and adds celebrations such as graduations, bridal showers, etc.

The holiday section features the most relevant holidays at the top, but if you scroll down you can find a list of other holidays you can choose from. Once you choose a holiday, you will be able to browse recipes according to dishes and meals: breakfast, dinner, side dishes, main courses, desserts, and more. Each category includes a volley of recipes to choose from.

And again, I must recommend the food gift section, which is a sure way to make the foodie in your life much happier this holiday season.

Bonus: MealPlanningMagic (& More)

If all these huge websites are not really your thing, and discovering smaller more intimate food blogs is one of your hobbies, this is what you’ve been waiting for. This Christmas, many food blogs are holding a “12 weeks of Christmas cookies” blog hop. This means that when you enter one food blog, you can find links to recipes from numerous other food blogs, all about Christmas cookies.

The blog hop seems to be led by the blog MealPlanningMagic, and is very widespread among food blogs. For example, if you go to this blog and scroll all the way down (after you browse the mouthwatering cookie recipes, that is), you’ll find numerous thumbnails to recipes from many other blogs.

If you click one of those, you’ll be taken to a different blog, where you can browse some more Christmas cookies and then find your way to even more blogs. This is a fantastic way to discover great food blogs, and to expand your Christmas cookie repertoire.

Conclusion

Cooking and baking is one of the best parts of the holiday season. Don’t let it be a chore; find some exciting holiday recipes you just can’t wait to make, and surprise your family and friends with small presents that don’t take up precious room in the house (except for the room they’ll take up after eating it all!).

If you know of some more places to find fantastic holiday recipes, we’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Image credit: Shutterstock

There are many websites to find some worthwhile recipes, including ones that will show you copycat recipes, lots of images to illustrate each step in a recipe and more here. You can also use recipe search engines like Yummly, and foodie social networks. Nowadays, you can even find excellent recipe suggestion sites on mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS, WebOS and more.

We’ve accumulated some Halloween recipes that can help expand your repertoire of culinary pieces and can decorate your table this October 31st. Check out the creepy-looking winners, sorted by level of difficulty.

Super Easy: Worms in Dirt

Got a pack of hot dogs or wieners sitting in your fridge? Cut them lengthwise and boil them till they curl. Mix them with some black beans and you’ve got yourself an easy appetizer.

Easy: Brain Jello

If you get yourself a brain mold from Amazon, you have an easy shortcut for a Halloween dish. For ideas, check out this jello shot recipe on Allrecipes or this simpler one for dessert.

Easy: Bloody Eyeballs

Here’s an easy Italian-inspired recipe that’s suitable for Halloween if you cube some well-seasoned chicken, place black olives on top and bake the pieces in tomato sauce. It’s up to you to arrange the chicken cubes in as eyeball-like shape as you’d like.

Easy: Witches Brew

Here’s an easy drink that you can prepare without much effort. The spooky part is in the hand made from gelatin and molded from a disposable glove. Follow this link for the simple recipe.

Easy: Bat Wings

Got soy sauce? Perhaps some black coloring agent as well? Toss them on some chicken wings, put them in the oven and you’ll have some bat wings in no time! The link in the title leads to Martha Stewart’s recipe that uses a few more ingredients such as oyster sauce and black bean sauce, which you might or might not have. In the latter case, you might want to look at this 3-condiment bat wing recipe on AllRecipes.

Medium: Bloody Baked Rats

These are cute mini-meatloaves shaped in, you guessed it, rats. These little rats actually hold Cheddar cheese inside so gooey cheese will ooze out when you slice them. Ingredients include ground beef, dry bread crumbs, meatloaf seasoning mix, tomato sauce and other common pantry items. Find the recipe on Allrecipes.com.

Medium: Jell-O “Blood” Worms

Since Jell-O is so versatile, people have got very creative. This is another example using plastic straws and raspberry- or grape-flavored gelatin. You can find a copy of the recipe here.

Medium: Spooky Eyeballs

Here’s another version of Halloween eyeballs that can even be for dessert. Anyone want to try some eyeball-shaped peanut butter cups? A commenter suggested in the recipe page to top cupcakes with these babies. They’re also pretty fun to make with others, especially if you have children.

Medium: Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes

Sugar and water can be just as versatile as jell-o.  You can make come up with interesting textures such as caramel, glass shards, etc. Combine them with corn syrup, red food coloring, and cornstarch and you’ll have the broken glass pieces that you can place on top of your favorite cupcakes (the recipe uses white cake mix for the cupcakes).

More Time-Consuming: Witches Fingers

Apparently these treats are pretty popular as there are many versions of the recipe in different websites. The fingers above on the left are made from this recipe (it’s basically a modified Christmas cookie recipe) while you can find the ones on the right on Martha Stewart. You can find additional versions here and here.

Let us know in the comments what you made this Halloween!  Have you tried out any Halloween recipes on this page?  If so, how did it work out for you?  Did you persuade anyone to eat it?

Image credit: The Idea Room

Food and smartphones can be a fantastic combination, and I don’t mean you should stir-fry your Droid. Some of the more recent Android smartphones have large screens (4.3”), and some even come with their own kickstand that lets you prop them up for easy viewing while cooking. All that’s left now is finding a good recipe app that can take you through the cooking process with style.

I’m happy to say that ChefTap perfectly fits that bill… and for a price that can’t be beat. Let’s see what makes it so good.

This is what you see when you first launch ChefTap. By default, the app is populated by recipes coming from Cheftap.com itself, but one of its key strengths is its ability to parse recipes from just about anywhere else and import them into its own interface. We’ll be looking at that ability later, but for now, let’s see what it can do with a recipe that’s already been parsed.

First of all, there are two possible views for the recipe feed: “Pictures” and “List”. The list view looks like this:

You can also star recipes, and view only recipes in certain categories (you need to set up the categories beforehand, though). Now let’s see what an individual recipe looks like… Say, for Cucumber Lime Gimlets:

As you can see, each recipe has two views. The Recipe view looks great for reading the recipe beforehand, when you’re still trying to make up your mind whether or not it’s right for you. The Step-by-step view is for when you’ve already decided to cook, and want to use your phone to guide you through the process. In portrait mode, it looks like this:

When you flip the device over, the app switches into landscape mode, which also includes a list of ingredients:

Once you’ve started cooking, you don’t have to stay within the same recipe. For example, sometimes you may have something in the oven, and want to browse around looking for other ideas. In that case, ChefTap pins your recipe in a “Now Cooking” category, making it easy to access later:

Now, let’s look at ChefTap’s famed recipe import facilities:

You can sync it with your Allrecipes or Epicurious account, which is great. But you can also just browse to any recipe site on your device and share the recipe with ChefTap, and let it figure it out. We’ve recently published a list of 5 awesome food blogs, so let’s test ChefTap with one of those. I like The Pioneer Woman Cooks, so let’ go there on my Android phone:

Okay, so this is a recipe for homemade cinnamon bread. Now let’s try pushing it into ChefTap and see what happens:

You simply share the page (the same way you do for emailing it, for example), and select ChefTap. That’s it! Now let’s go to ChefTap and see what happened:

The recipe appears in the list with all of the other ones, including an image:

Tapping it brings up a view of its ingredients and steps, and includes a direct link to the source:

In this particular case, ChefTap parsed the recipe perfectly, slicing it neatly into ingredients and instructions at exactly the right spot:

This is what the imported recipe looks like in Step by Step view:

Let’s say “1 cup Milk” was actually a step, and tap it to “correct” it:

You can easily change it to a step, title or a subtitle.

What’s Missing

ChefTap is impressive. For a free app, it’s darn near perfect. The only two things I feel are missing is a way to increase the font size in the Step-by- step view, and a built-in unit converter. This particular recipe goes by cups, but some bakers like to weigh their ingredients (they say it’s more accurate that way). A way to convert cups into grams (or whatever weight unit you’re used to) would be an obvious feature, especially given ChefTap’s already impressive parsing ability.

Do you have a favorite recipe app for Android? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks to services like Epicurious, discovering new recipes and food is easier than ever. Now that the website has rolled out a full course of applications for various mobile platforms, this wealth of tasty knowledge fits into the palm of your hand or comfortably on your kitchen worktop. In this article I’ll be mainly looking at the iPhone version of the Epicurious app, although the WebOS tablet version gets a decent mention too.

Find Your Flavour

As I briefly mentioned above, there are several different versions for different operating systems. As well as iOS versions for both the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch, there is a version for Android phones, Windows Phone 7 devices and the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. Oddly enough, the WebOS version is not listed on the official site, although you will find it in the HP App Catalog.

If you don’t have a compatible tablet or phone then the Epicurious website works just as well but might not be the portable solution you are looking for in the kitchen. Bizarrely enough there are also apps for Samsung’s smart refrigerator and various HP printers. Download the Epicurious apps now!

For Starters

It goes without saying that the main weight of this application revolves around cookery and recipes. On the app’s opening screen are a list of categories that Epicurious uses to provide quick access to their database. These labels are great, and provide an easy way to browse recipes without simply relying on a search bar (which is, naturally, also present).

Categories include things like “Weeknight Dinners” and “Vegetarian Mains” as well as skill-dependent titles like “I Can Barely Cook”. Tapping one of these will take you to a big list of recipes, and using the tablet (WebOS) version I was able to sort, favourite, share and so on directly from this view.

Unfortunately on the iPhone it is not possible to sort the recipes according to the date added, relevance, rating and such, though you can add a recipe to your favourites quickly by tapping plus. A bigger screen means more space and a nicer experience, and this is what you’ll get with both the iPad and WebOS versions.

The iPhone version shouldn’t be viewed as bad by any means, and overall the app is responsive and pleasant to use when browsing and viewing recipes. The other tabs are reserved for Search, your Favorites, Info about the app and a Shopping List (more on that later).

The Meat & Gravy

The food on offer, whilst entirely subjective, will probably make you hungry from just browsing. Most recipes are accompanied with a picture, reviews and tips left by those who have tried the concoction and the ability to share, favourite and so on using the plus icon. On tablet versions more space onscreen allows for individual buttons, which makes emailing or saving something for later quick and painless.

Community involvement is key here, and I’ve seen multiple instances of users leaving tips, variations, workarounds for allergies and so on in the reviews section so if you do spot something you like it’s always worth checking the reviews.

The WebOS version features a slider which you can move as you complete the recipe. On the iPhone version you can only look at a small portion of the screen at a time, so the slider has been left out (which doesn’t create that much of a problem).

Just Desserts

Finally, for the cook who likes to plan ahead, we have the shopping list function. With a simple tap of a button (or plus button then Add to Shopping List for iPhone users) the ingredients from your chosen recipe are added to a shopping list in some sort of order.

The application groups similar items into one list, so you don’t even need to make note of the ingredients you need. This is one aspect that the iPhone version really benefits from – portability. Let’s face it, who wants to carry a tablet around the supermarket when you can quickly check your phone instead?

This is a decent feature that, whilst not exclusive to Epicurious, might just make you come back to the app a little more often.

Conclusion

I first used this app on WebOS and instantly saw it as a useful bit of software. On a tablet it’s great for browsing categories, finding new recipes as well as checking recipes whilst cooking. The iPhone’s small screen size does taint the experience slightly, though the app’s performance doesn’t suffer and we’re only a few features away from a top-notch app. There are enough versions of Epicurious available for most people to try it out, and for free there’s very little to lose!

Have you tried Epicurious? Do you have any other favourite recipe and shopping list apps? Let us know in the comments!

I am considering going vegetarian, so I researched some resources about how to make the transition. For you veteran vegetarians out there, please add to this list some of your favorite online resources, in the comments section below.

The Vegetarian Starter Kit

For a well designed and informative introduction to vegetarianism, download a PDF copy of The Vegetarian Starter Kit. This thirteen page guide includes information about basic vegetarian foods, the “protein myth”, the four vegetarian food groups, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, tips for making the switch, and vegetarian diets for children and pregnant women.

A handy little section in the guide called “the veganizer” provides suggestions for replacing your existing meals with low-fat vegan meals, e.g. if you regularly eat a doughnut in the morning for breakfast, you might try cinnamon raisin toast with jam as a vegetarian substitute.

The Vegetarian Society

To keep yourself well informed about the vegetarian lifestyle, you’ll want to subscribe to the Vegetarian Society newsletter. The Society defines a vegetarian as “someone living on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits with or without the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of slaughter“.

The Vegetarian Society includes news and related events, as well as links to associated sites for National Vegetarian Week, and the Young Veggies.

YouTube Videos

To hear the experiences and advice of one person who has made the transition to a vegetarian lifestyle, check out  Journal in Raw, which features over forty videos geared toward people who were making the transition to a raw food diet.

Recent videos on the channel include, Snack Alternatives for Those Transitioning, Bread Substitutes and Raw FoodDetox Diet.

Another related and useful YouTube series is the five-part, Vegetarian Shopping Hints from Vegan Gal.

VegWeb

No doubt the biggest concern to making a transition to a vegetarian diet is what is there to eat? While there are several cookbooks on the subject, VegWeb seems to be a good introduction to over 15,000 recipes that you can research by category, such as appetizers, beverages, breads, casseroles, slow cooker recipes, desserts, fruits and vegetables.

VegWeb is well designed with a user forum, coupons, and links to other sources.

VegDining

VegDining addresses another challenge for going vegetarian, i.e. where to eat out? This site is a resource bank of restaurants and other eateries around the world that provide vegetarian meals. You can easily search your city for vegetarian restaurants, and you get the opportunity to write a review of the places you have eaten at.

Savvy Vegetarian

The Savvy Vegetarian website includes a large assortment of recipes, shopping and cooking tips, and articles about going vegetarian, health, lifestyle, nutrition, and vegetarian children.

Vegan Recipe Finder

There doesn’t appear to be a good free vegetarian recipe app for the iPhone, but Vegan Recipe Finder is a very affordable option for $2.99. The app includes 13,000 vegan recipes (with photos) and a handy grocery list maker. Recipes can be sorted alphabetically by rating or by number of views.

Whatever your reasons are for going vegetarian, these websites show that making the transition may not be as difficult as you think.

If you already live on a vegetarian diet, let us know how you got started, and what challenges you face if any in the comments below.  What vegetarian resources and websites do you use?

Facebook users visit the social networking site almost every day to share links and random information. It’s therefore great news that Facebook now has a really integrated recipe application by Foodily for everyone to make use of. While the Foodily website itself is already incredibly useful, this new Facebook application is the ultimate way to share and explore recipes with your friends and family.

Check Out Foodily

Firstly, you can sign up for Foodily itself on their website with either an email address or a Facebook Connect login. There’s no need to use the Facebook application at all, but it does make it more sociable if you do!

If you sign up with an email address, it’s possible to use Facebook Connect to find your friends later.

Once you’re signed in, you’ll see that Foodily revolves around providing you with a recipe “Feed”. This feed is made up of recipes your friends like – and to get you started Foodily has added you as a friend so you can see their recommended recipes.

Search Recipes By Ingredient

Foodily claims to have the world’s largest recipe database since it links in to many of the biggest databases and blogs. The search function is also quite sophisticated, allowing you to quickly find the exact recipe you need.

At the top of all pages in Foodily is the search bar, allowing you to search for anything in the Foodily collection. Results can be limited by low-fat, low-carb, top rated, blogs only and more.

If you want to be able to exclude certain ingredients as well, go back to the home page to enter in your search.

Then all you do is browse away. Foodily gives you a link to the creator of the recipe and a brief list of ingredients. So, you’re always going to refer to the original creator in order to obtain the method for cooking.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll see Foodily have also offered some suggested categories for you to browse for great recipes.

Install The Facebook Foodily Application

If you’d like to use Foodily inside Facebook as well, the application can be found here. The interface within Facebook looks very much like the original website, so there’s no surprises when it comes to usage.

Recipes To Share With Your Friends

Whenever you see a recipe you like in Foodily, you just hover your mouse over it and you’ll see a heart icon. Click that and you’ve saved it as a favourite. This is all it takes to share the recipes with friends both on Foodily and using Facebook.

Another link will pop-up after you’ve saved offering the ability to save the recipe to a list, such as for entertaining, kid-friendly or some other list name you’d prefer to use.

Later, you can easily browse your own favourite recipes by checking out your saved recipes and browsing your lists.

Competition

Foodily is one of many great recipe sites available, including Gojee, Kitchen Monki, Punchfork and Yummli. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but you can’t help but love to browse them all!

What do you think is the most important feature of a good recipe search site? Do you love to share with your friends? Is the search capability more important than the size of the database? Why or why not?