Ever found yourself wondering what to make for dinner? Running out of dessert ideas? Have vegan guests coming over? Stuck in a food rut? Or even just wanting to healthier but have no idea where to start? Epicurious is here, and can help you solve those food riddles.
This neat little application (from the website of the same name) offers you a wide variety of recipes and food ideas to spice up your menus, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner. And even better… it can help you remember what to buy by creating a shopping list. No need to go home without the most important ingredients you need for the dishes you want to prepare.
The Epicurious app is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad as well as phones which use the Android operating system. To begin, downloading and installing this little wonder from the App Store went by so quickly, and to get started is even easier… no need to sign up, or register – just tap the icon and you’re ready to start finding recipes.
Epicurious has quite a few categories for their recipes – whether you’re looking for weeknight dinners, decadent desserts, healthy lunches or dinner parties, you can find recipes that might tickle your fancy. Are you one of those people that claim the following? “I can barely cook”. No problem, there’s a category for you too. There’s even one for the culinary queens who cook like pros. Best bit? It's updated regularly to accommodate holidays, Valentine's day, what is in season, etc.
Feature treats
Let’s do a run-down of the features this app brings with it: you can browse recipes, search by ingredient, add chosen recipes to your shopping list, and even send (or share) favourite dishes via e-mail or various social networks… handy, huh? You can even rate the recipes you love (or don’t), and add them to your favourites for future reference.
(The search option gives the freedom to search by main ingredient, meal/course, cuisine, dietary consideration, dish type or occasion. The same search applies for drink searches.)
I’m no pro in the kitchen, nor a complete novice, however I do find myself looking for meal ideas more often than not, especially for quick and easy weekday meals or healthier lunchboxes options. I test-drove this little app to do my weekly shopping, and planning meals a week in advance.
I selected the recipes I felt I liked, added them to my shopping list (and combined all of the recipes), then e-mailed the list to my BlackBerry (the iPod Touch needs Wi-Fi to reach full awesomeness potential, and my local supermarket doesn’t offer Wi-Fi yet, if you own an iPhone however, you can just open the shopping
list in-store) then went off shopping.
Easy as pie… well the proverbial one anyway.
I'd suggest you also head over to the Epicurious.com website - it has more than 27,000 professionally tested recipes from the top foodie mags like Gourmet and Bon Appetit as well as 115,000 member-submitted recipes, and web-exclusive original content (like cool food videos demos from pro chefs).
(If you already have a recipe box on the website, for a one-time-only fee of $1.99, you can sync your Recipe Box with your Favourites on your iPhone and iPad although syncing of member-created recipes is currently not available).
Chef-in-the-making or domestically challenged, I’d rate this as a handy application as worthwhile on any of the supported devices.
Whether you’re a novice cook, or the queen of the culinary arts, the Epicurious app will give you some very nice recipe ideas indeed.
