Professional recipe managment

[W.DeBord]

Since loosing my whole 'mousse' recipe file I've desided to get off my duff and get my most important recipes into a file management system. I briefly looked at programs at stores and they seemed too limited for my use professionally(as I hope to do).

I did follow someones suggestion to use 'Now Your Cooking' software. I just started and I can see some limitations. The limitations probably are my personal lack of computor skills, and I wondering if others have figured out how to work this progrm to their advantage?

If your using this software, have you discovered any tips you could pass on to a beginner? And a non-computor literate person.

A couple of my beginning questions:

Can I disable the preset measurements and ingredients that pop up to help? Then place my own words/ingredients there (to save me time)?

Do I need to place recipes in my own cookbooks? I've just been adding them to the opening page (I deleted what they had there first) and am adding everything there. I have a strange feeling I'm going to regret doing that, but I don't know enough yet to know why I shouldn't do that.?

My catagories don't match their catagories. With in 'Desserts' I have like 20 sub catagories. Can I make my own catagories or does it have to be done thru using different 'cookbooks'? I keep thinking if I use different 'cookbooks' for my sub-catagories I'll have to open and close them non-stop as I add recipes (because I can't add my recipes in order of catagory, due to different locations of certain recipes).

Any help or even tips on this or other software options would be greatly appreciated before I get in too deep? Keeping in mind I'd like to use this for work recipes and all the different needs that goes along with it.

[DanniC]

Hi W.DeBord,

A nice easy program that is around is Resort Chef. It might be worth a look. Depends on what you want to do, but the people who wrote that have another program out as well. The website where you can grab a free download of it is http://www.resortsoftware.com
Hope this helps.

Dannic

[W.DeBord]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[nancya]

I have the MasterCook ala Carte program. I like that it can do a nutritional analysis and adjust your recipe for the number of portions you want. The recipes that came with it are only so-so. It does connect you to their website also and you can download more so-so recipes if you want. It also allows you to create your own recipe book, I forgot to mention that.

I imagine there are better programs out there.

[davewarne]

Hi,

I had the same idea a long time ago. The problem is ...time. The time it takes to get all that info into the computer. I have an extensive cookery book library and came to the conclusion that as I didn't want to throw them out, all I had to put on the computer was WHERE I could find the recipe. I make notes in the book margin on any 'improvements' I might make. It works well for those magazine pages too.
This won't cost or analyse the dish, but keeping prices up to date is another pile of work. All in all I'd rather be cooking than staring at my PC.

Happy New Year

[Jim]

Just a thought... instead of using a pre-packaged piece of software, have you considered organizing your recipes into a database (like Access) or even in an index-like environment in Excel? You said that your computer skills may be limited, but with a decent book and a little guidance working this way may be your answer. Sometimes simpler is better. Just a thought.

[marmalady]

Anyone have any experience with Accuchef? I bought it last summer, but haven't used it much yet (we were renovating the house and my summer was a total disaster! Then the fall came, and I had to put the garden to bed, then the holidays came and well ---now it's the new year, and one of my resolutions is to get my recipes transferred to the software! Sigh. Jackie