I’ve been busy as a bee, organized the mountain of recipe web pages that I’ve been saving during the last year or so.
Back a few months ago, I originally tried saving each recipe page as a pdf file on my hard drive in a categorized folder. It was very cumbersome, and although I could search for recipes on my laptop hard drive (albeit clumsily), it could be difficult to make my recipes mobile, to find and search on any other mode like the web or my iPhone.
I’d all but given up on the process, until the other day when I re-discovered Evernote.
It just so happened that I was clipping an unrelated web page into the cool Mac app Evernote, and for some reason, I started reading the Evernote tips on my iPhone app, and it suggested organizing recipes using Evernote. YES! What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that!?
So, I started experimenting, and it worked just beautifully!
Evernote Makes it Easy to Save, Access, Search and Find Recipes
My recipes are saved to my computer hard drive, then synced online to my Evernote web account, and then to my iPhone. I can also save notes on my iPhone or any web browser, and all three will sync!
Besides the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, there are mobile apps for Android, Blackberry, Palm, Windows phones – check their downloads page for details.
Using the iPhone app, I can easily search for “giada pasta” and just my captured pasta recipes written by Giada De Laurentiis will pop up; so I can easily read them while in my kitchen, grocery store, camping, etc.
This also means that anywhere I have internet, say at my mom’s house, I can log into my web account and access all of my recipes. Very helpful if I need to find her favorite oat bran muffin recipe!
Using the Evernote app installed on my hard drive, I can narrow the search even further. If I need to find only my soup recipes using chicken, I can search in my “soup” tagged recipes for the keyword “chicken” – I just love this!
It’s up to you how you want to organize your recipes. You don’t have to use tags, you can just create a new notebook for recipes, and start clipping. Searching will be just as easy, since Evernote scours through all the text content.
And it’s not just for recipes. Today, I captured a Meat & Seafood cooking chart, so I can easily check the cooked temperature for my turkey on Thanksgiving!
So, What is Evernote?
So, what exactly is Evernote?
It’s a Mac and Windows app that can “capture” and organize everything like web pages, images, screen shots, etc. It’s fantastic! Well, it’s fantastic for the Mac. I’ve tried using it on the Windows computer at work, and it’s a bit clunky and hinky, but it’s worth a try. Perhaps a better Windows solution would be the highly recommended Windows app called OneNote that I think has an iPhone app as well.
I have to say the best part of Evernote is it’s FREE, provided you stay within your monthly allotted file usage of 40mb 60mb. And as long as you refrain from capturing lots of photos or images, there should be no problem sticking to the monthly allowance. This month, I’ve captured almost 400 recipes and have used about half my space. I’m careful to edit out all the extra text, links, and images to save.
I’m not going to delve into the details on how to specifically use Evernote, as there is a great “get started” tutorial online, but there are a couple of little tips to mention.
For Firefox browser users, the Evernote add-on makes capturing from Firefox super easy. Once the add-on is installed, a little button is added to the toolbar. Just click the button and the current page is clipped and added to the Evernote software on your hard drive.
Don’t fret if you aren’t a Firefox user, check their web clipper downloads page to find the generic web clipper (bottom of the page). Just drag it to your browser link bar and when you want to capture a page, click it to save it to Evernote.
Once the web page is captured, you can then edit the page similarly as you would in any word processing app. Remove or add text, change formatting, etc.
After you’ve installed and set up Evernote, take a minute to click the “Trunk” button link on the top toolbar and download the Epicurious notebook which includes 10 delicious burger recipes to add to your account.
I highly recommend Evernote for organizing anything, but for compiling recipes and cooking tips, it’s absolutely indispensable, and I think I’m going to love it more than any iPhone cooking app, because it’s customizable for my needs and includes only the recipes and cooking tips that I am interested in! And IT’S FREE!!!!
UPDATE December 19, 2010: I am loving Evernote even more! I have clipped all of my own recipes into the program, and it’s been wonderful to search for keyword(s) and I can easily find the recipe I want! And bravo to the folks at Evernote! They just increased the allotted monthly file space from 40mb to 60mb! I had no problem keeping under the 40mb, but this will be even better!
And keep in mind, you can also use Evernote for other interests and subjects as well. I keep a lot of my health topics in a separate notebook. Trip planning, Christmas gift lists, doctor’s notes, etc. The options are endless!
Hi there. I just found your blog and wanted to say thanks for all the great information and thoughtful perspectives. I’ll be bookmarking and visiting often… and can’t wait to try this program, too. Just last week I was at my mom’s and needed a recipe back at home. What a great idea!
Thanks Katie!
I feel like the Evernote file is never ending. I’m constantly emailing myself recipe links. It’s addictive!
I just installed Evernote, and clipping recipes was one of the things I want to do. I am still learning, but don’t get how to do this. I checked out the tutorial, but still haven’t been able to do it. I use Google Chrome. Would love to hear from you how this works.
Hello Carmen!
If you are using Chrome, did you also install the evernote clipping extension?
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/pioclpoplcdbaefihamjohnefbikjilc
I am not a Chrome user, but it looks like it’s probably very similar to Firefox.
I started to write a tutorial to explain my method for saving recipes using Evernote, but to tell you the truth, it was extremely frustrating because I wanted to also include notes for Windows users.
I found the Windows version of Evernote almost un-usable for clipping and editing recipes found online. I like to edit all the excess out of the note, and it just didn’t seem as smooth as it was on my Mac.
Are you using Windows or Mac? Hopefully someday, I will finish the tutorial, but for now, it’s sitting in my drafts.
Good luck!
You might also try BigOven, which was created for cooks by people who love to cook. Search 200,000+ recipes and add your own by url or taking photos – plus scale recipes instantly, use the calendar-based menu planner, grocery list, nutrition info and more. Get the free BigOven apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows Phone, or use BigOven on the web – everything automatically syncs. See our demo at http://www.BigOven.com. Happy cooking!
Hello Kate, yes, I do also have “big oven” on my iPhone and iPad, but I admit, I don’t use it.
I find it frustrating sometimes, at least for me, to have so many different cooking/recipe apps, such as yours, plus Epicurious, Mark Bittman apps, etc. I like having ALL my recipes in one place in Evernote. I know they’re all there, and I can tag the ones that I want to use for an upcoming meal.
But I will definitely give your app a second look, especially if you say you have a meal planner too. Thanks for your comment!
Okay, Kate, yeah, I checked into Big Oven a little further, and it appears you require membership for the menu planner, so I won’t be checking it out. I don’t need to pay $16 (per year), for features I can get for free elsewhere. And I know there are other menu planning apps that cost about $5 if I need more.
thanks anyway, but I’ll pass.
Hi Deb,
I use BigOven to plan meals and grocery shop for my family of four, and I can assure you that it will save you more than $15.99 on groceries in the first week alone. Not only will you eat at restaurants less often, but you’ll waste less food, which can be expensive – especially if you’re buying fresh and/or organic produce.
You can try Pro completely free for 30 days and cancel if you’d like, but people very rarely do – it’s got everything a home cook needs.
I’ve already cut my food budget in half, which includes groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins, herbs, etc. And I’ve done this for free, using tools I already had on my phone and computer.
I try to eat organic or pesticide-free, along with locally and seasonally when possible; I keep a menu plan on my iPad using a simple Note app. It’s not very difficult, and I have ALL my fave recipes available, as I said, on Evernote.
Big oven is probably helpful to some, but it is really isn’t something I need, especially when I already have so much helpful resources. It would be overload at this point.
Thanks again.