Best App for Recipe Organizing and Menu or Meal Planning: Paprika

I'm a planner.  I love planning.  And I love to cook.  And I love technology.  Using technology to plan my cooking is the trifecta of joy for me.  I've tried several recipe curating apps and have finally settled on the end-all Best of Show app: Paprika.

Before I tell you all the reasons I love it, I'll tell you about the (free) runner-up: Pepperplate.

Pros:

• Free.  Free is good.
• Kept all of my online recipes organized in one place.
• Allowed me to insert recipes into a weekly or monthly calendar for menu planning.

Cons:

• Ads.  Goes with free.  If I'm not paying, I'm the product being delivered.
• Said it would sync between iPhone/iPad and website (desktop) version, but the syncing was unreliable and unpredictable.  Either it wouldn't sync, or it would only sync part of the week.
• The tagging, or categorizing interface was bulky and annoying to use.
• Could not export or sync weekly menu to my main calendar.  I didn't like having to open a separate app to see what's for dinner.
• #1 annoyance: Could not add to my recipe hoard from a mobile device, had to use the desktop version or manually type it it.

I used Pepperplate for about a year.  It was okay, but I not great.  Then I met Paprika. Elegant, and intuitive -- does everything I had wished for, and more.  Really really impressed with this app.

Pros:

• No ads.
• Easy Recipe Import:  
• It's easy to add a recipe to my hoard from within or without the app.  If I am browsing along and see a recipe I want to keep, I click on a bookmarklet in my desktop browser toolbar, or in my mobile device browser, and the recipe is saved.  Occasionally, if I am in an off-the-beaten path website I have to massage it a little, but for all the big ones I frequent (Food 52, Pioneer Woman) it's a simple one-click import.  I moved all my recipes over from Pepperplate this way.
• I can also easily add from within the app. The outer shell of the pic below is the Paprika app.  From the inside, I can browse the web.  When I see a recipe I want -- in this case a Dutch Baby recipe, I use the toolbar on the bottom to import it.

 

•  Menu planning: I can easily add recipes to different days and move them around.  Here is what we are eating this week.

• 
  

•  Plus, this weekly plan syncs to iCal.  I love love love this.  Without even opening Paprika. I can easily see what's on for tonight as well as what I need to thaw for later this week.
• Menus: Things I always serve together can also be arranged in menus and then I can just add that combo to a day's plan.
• Pantry: It includes an easily populated list of what is in the pantry.  I don't use it as such, I use it for what's on the produce shelf, what perishables do I need to use this week.  Super handy for that.

• There also some nice features when you actually are using the recipe from your mobile device.
• After you put in an ingredient, touch it and it greys out to help you keep your place.  Great feature for cooks-in-training and for the highly distracted mom training them.

• Similarly, if you touch a chunk of directions it becomes high-lighted to help you keep your place. 
• Where the recipe says cook at 350 for 30 minutes, touch the "30 minutes" and the timer starts.

Cons:

• Not free, but pretty cheap: $4.99 for the iPhone version and $19.99 for the Mac desktop app.

Download them.  You won't regret it, I promise.

Best Apps for Remodeling

Well you know I love techno gadgets, so naturally starting a remodel means find new apps.

I tried a bunch of them. Here are the ones that I'm keeping.

IKEA Kitchen Planner: free. This is awesome for entering the dimensions of the room and then moving cabinets etc. around to see what would fit where. Then we could visualize it as a Birdseye or 3-D WalkThrough. 

I struggled with couple of things for a bit.  Here they are so that you can avoid the hassle.

• When saving, if you use your mouse at all it won't let you change the name and save multiple drafts. 
• Also to see it in high-resolution, you have to hit shift-control-alt-H. There's no documentation for that, I just learned it from the IKEA salesman. The high-resoltion only works on Windows computers.

ToDo Cloud: not free. This works on my phone, my desktop as an app, and on the web.  It is a list multi-user app that allows us to keep track of all of the things we have to do.  All the subtasks. All the deadlines.  We can allocate certain subtasks to either one of us. And we can include on any task contact information for outside vendors, price comparisons, whatever.   We can comment on our own, and each other's tasks.  We can assign priority.  We can schedule delivery dates. It is the brain of the project.

Also, we can tag a subtask to a certain location (actually they call it "setting a context"). If it is something we need to look at at Lowe's we can tag it accordingly. And then when we are at Lowe's, we can have it show us a list of all the stuff we need to look at.   Note bene: take a screenshot of your Lowe's list in case you get in there and lose service. 

This screenshot shows all the tasks that have a high priority setting or that have a subtask with that setting.  These are all things that need to be taken care of first.

 This screenshot shows all the details of the Windows task.  You can see how each is assigned.  I starred "Shop for Bargains" to indicate that that is in the works.  I am waiting on bids.

HomeZada: free.  This is my desktop budgeting app.  It auto-populated a long list of things a typical kitchen remodel needs. I deleted some items and added some others, and then I entered educated guesses for what things would cost. It tallied up my totals for me so I could see if what I had in the savings account was close to what I was going to need.  As actual figures come in of course those totals are adjusted.

HomeZada has a mobile app, but it's not nearly as robust. Even though it does offer a comparison-shopping feature, I won't use it. I far prefer the To Do Cloud memo function for that.  Here is the link, in case you want to try it.

Houzz: free. This is a great tearsheet app. When my mom was remodeling we tore sheets of paper out of magazines and kept the scraps of paper in a big pile. Houzz is the iPhone generation's version of that. See something pretty you like? And it to your Houzz collection. It's rather like Pinterest only more dedicated to home improvement and decor.

And of course, there is an iphone Houzz app.

My Measures & Dimensions PRO: not free. Remodeling means measuring everything and keeping track of the dimensions everything.   With My Measure Pro, you take picture and then you can overlay the measurements onto the picture.

I'm using it to keep track of appliances I need to find homes for.  I'm hoping to house these two in a coffee garage.  This shows me the height, width, and depth in a way that make sense to me.  

 It's also really handy when I am getting window bids.

What remodeling apps do you favor?

favorite iPhone apps: Mailbox

I am having so much fun with my birthday iPhone. And more than merely fun, it is turning into an essential tool.

Here are some of my favorite apps.

Mailbox by Orchestra. Oh this is a beauty. Set it up to handle all your gmail. When you get an email, you can chose to Archive, Delete, or Save for Later. Whatever you choose will be updated across all your platforms (phone, tablet, or computer).

Save for Later is awesome as it will let you take that email about where and when to drop off your child next Tuesday and set it to reappear in your inbox next Tuesday. You don't need to think about it until then, so why have it sitting in your inbox all weekend?

So, if an email is read-only, that is, no action on my part is required, I just read it and archive it. If action is required of me, I can deal with it immediately, or save it for later. Alas, it is not yet available for my desktop, but it is coming.

love my nest

Love love love my nests.  The most expensive winter heat bill with our nest thermostats is -- as you can see -- lower than almost all of the pre-nest winter bills and significantly lower than most pre-nest winter bills.

Plus it manages heat more efficiently which means we feel warmer even though we are spending less.

 

nest learning thermostat

Last January I took the plunge and bought TWO Nest Learning Thermostats .  No regrets. They were super-easy to install and program.  I can even adjust the temp from afar via the app for iTouch or iPad.

The best part is that, when I compare this year's gas bills with last year's, the bills are lower (despite a rate increase) and yet we experience a warmer house.  How so?  It is warm when we are in it.  When we leave and forget to turn it down, Nest turns itself down.  It has a little sensor that sees motion.  If a couple of hours go by without motion, it goes off.

Once a month I get reports in my email about usage:

But if I am ever curious between reports it is easy to peek at the last ten days of use on my Nest Thermostat website.

My old Honeywell thermostat had four settings (Wake, Leave, Return, Sleep) and three days (Weekday, Saturday, Sunday).  The Nests have unlimited settings and all seven days.  Given that we live in our home full-time, this works so much better for us.  I can change the programing from the thermostat, or from my computer.  The computer interface makes arranging a rather complex pattern of off/on/off/on really easy.  I have all the days set the same, but I could easily drag those temps over to change the time.  Or add other changes.

The thermostat for the newer part of the house required a slightly different set-up.  The helpful and easily accessed support team talked me through the diagnostic and when it was confirmed that I needed a professional they arranged for one (at their expense).  He would have come that evening had I wanted it.  I was very impressed. 

Yes, the Nest Learning Thermostats are expensive to purchase, but they will pay for themselves in lower heat bills.  As they do that, however, we have the benefit of a warmer home.  It doesn't hurt that they are pretty too.

iPad: what is really inside

skype

Have any of you used Skype? What do you think?

works for me: keeping my iTouch organized

If you don't have an iTouch or iPhone and are annoyed by people who do, just skip this post.

I want to share a trick with you for keeping your iTouch apps organized.

Move all but one of your apps off of your front page. Then, as you use them, move them one-by-one back to the front. This keeps the front page restricted to your most-used apps, the ones you click on every day, usually multiple times.

When the first page is starting to get full, do the same process on the second page or use pages 2-6 for categories of apps.

Here are my lean essentials-only first page and my second holding the the second-stringer apps: things I use a couple times a week.

Page 3 is for my toys and page 4 is for kid toys home-schooling applications.

Pages 5 & 6 are the third stringer apps -- things I want to have, but don't use very often.

Remember, you don't have to fill a page. A half-full page is much easier to scan. Was that helpful? or am I really pathetic?



My other Works for Me posts.
works+for+me

works for me: iTouch task organizer: Omnifocus

I can't even begin to tell you how much I like my iTouch task organizer, Omnifocus. I enter my tasks, and tag them according to Which Project they are part of (home life, school GOP, help others, kid stuff, etc.); Where they get done (yard, computer, town, campus, etc.); When they are due and any other notes.

Then, I can pull up all the things I need to do soon.

or

all the things I need to do at here, there, or anywhere.

or

all the things I need to do for Project XYZ.

The location part is particularly nifty, as I can set the locations of different errands with GPS and then Omnifocus will list all the things I need to do while I am in that part of town. No more getting home and remembering that I forgot to drop off the library books or pick up the Rx.

Boy-oh-boy does this work for me.

My other Works for Me posts.

iFlipr and Prima Latina Flashcards

If you are using the Prima Latina curriculum for your kids' home-schooling, and if you have an iTouch or an iPhone, you can get the iFlipr application for about $5 and use our Prima Latina flashcards. No more paper cards to make and carry around.

Of course you an use this flashcard application for iPhone or iTouch for anything you want to learn, as you get to enter the data yourself, or use someone else's cards. If you want to use our flashcards, here is the link to Prima Latina flashcards Chapters 1-3 with more chapters to follow.

Anytime we have downtime and I have my iTouch, (which is ALWAYS because I LOVE IT and it is SHINY and NIFTY and I LOVE IT -- oh, sorry), anyway, when I am not flipping out, we can do our Latin flashcards.

top 16 iTouch applications

Well, someone had to do it: try a bunch of iTouch apps and let you know about them. Here are the results of my in-depth and obsessive-compulsive dedicated research:

Fun

Pandora Radio: I can't describe it any better than this:

You pick a song, album or artist and Pandora immediately builds a whole "radio station" around it, endlessly streaming complete tunes from top artists. You can even tweak your station by giving songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. ~ Time

It is also available for your home computer. Who needs Sirius?

Koi Pond: just what it says, with the option to shake the iTouch and feed your Koi.

iChalky: a silly stick man that rattles around your screen

Literary

Shakespeare: all of the plays and quite a few sonnets and poems, for your reading pleasure. Because you never know when you might need a fix.



Stanza: And if the bard didn't do it for you, here you can read, oh, 100,000 other titles, for free. Who needs a Kindle?

Useful

Omnifocus: this is the organizer of my dreams. I enter my to do list by both project and location. For example, drop off files at college in north end of town. Omnifocus will sort my tasks by location, or project, or due date. Super easy to use and learn and I am really happy with it. Not free.

ShapeWriter Pro: type without lifting your finger. The program interprets your tracings into words and is remarkably accurate and easy to use. Free trial and/or 9.99 purchase. Huge WOW factor.


Shopper: easy-to use grocery list with categories and a 'note' feature to remind yourself to use that coupon you've been carrying around or to record prices.

Memory Stick: lets you use your iTouch as a wireless spare hard drive.

Practical

GoogleEarth: you need this on your home computer too. If you ignore the rest of this list, fine, but you need to go get GoogleEarth.

Simple GPS: attaches the current location of your iTouch to whatever app you are using: GoogleEarth, Twitter, whatever you wish.


If Found, please: displays your contact info and a plea for the return of your iTouch should someone find it.

myLite: turns your iTouch into a SOS flashlight, or just a regular flashlight.

WiFinder: finds WiFi and hooks you up.

Social

Tweetie: basically Twitter for the iTouch. Tweet and be tweeted.


Facebook: add Facebook on your iTouch.



These are all available through your iTunes App Store.

So, I ask you, what did I miss?


Was this post useful? If so, please Digg It!

iTouch
appstore
iPhone