To all of you Foodie’s out there, how do you keep track of
your recipes? Old food splattered books
on a shelf, index cards and boxes, junk drawer full of papers and clippings,
Instagram, Google, etc?
A couple of years ago I discovered a wonderful app that is
available to you on Android, iOS, and from any web browser, so if you like
cooking with your phone or tablet or laptop, they have you covered. You can compose and enter your recipes from
any device, upload multiple photos, create the most complex recipes like how to
make the sauce, entrée and other components.
But WAIT! There’s
more! ChefTap was actually designed to
gather recipes. As in, you give it the
URL to the recipe you just found on cooking.com and it goes after it, strips
away all the ads other nonsense, grabs a photo, ingredients, and instructions and
loads it all into your library, along with a link back to where you found
it. I’ve found that it works great just
about anywhere, but just in case you can review and correct any errors the
program made, like omissions or additions of other commentary. I’ve never had to do that though.
This amazing gem is created and supported by two
people. Kate and Shawn, both
programmers, and foodies with a passion for both and supporting ChefTap. I’ve contacted them a couple of times and
always got almost immediate response back, we’ve even carried on a few lengthy
email exchanges. They listen to the
users and go above and beyond to help them, like recently when I was having a minor problem and thought I could just
delete all my recipes and force them to sync back in… and I lost
everything. Despite it being “after
hours” on a Friday night, Shawn jumped in the server and recovered everything I’d
just deleted.
By the way, did I mention this app would also make up and
help you manage your shopping lists?
YUP! Finally you can tag your
recipes, compile a list of ingredients and take your phone to the store to get
what you need. I haven’t used it but
once, but it looks to be very powerful and helpful. It even helps you inventory and manage those “staple
items” that you should have a running stock of, like flour, sugar, salt, etc.
I know you’re wondering by now how much this life-saving app
will cost you. Any tool worth having is
worth paying a fair price for, and this one is no different, except you can get
totally free version with some limitations.
All in all it’s still a fantastic app, even as a free version. However, for the low, LOW price of $19.95 a
year you will be supporting a great app and pair of
people and have no limitations and that awesome priority support I mentioned.
Go on over to http://ChefTap.Com and look around their website
at what all you can do, they even have videos to show you how the app works.
Keep on Grillin’ and Chillin!
--Mike
