Cook’N Recipe Organizer Review

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Thanks to DVO enterprises I received the Cook’N Recipe Organizer software for review.

If you love to cook and are always looking for recipes you probably have a collection of folders, papers, notebooks, cookbooks and myriads of favorites saved.  Problems is they aren’t usually in any particular order.  They probably look like this –

There are certain recipes I use over and over again because I know exactly where they are, but then when I want to change things up it takes digging thought pages and papers and web favorites to find what I need.  The frustrating part of it all is that I rarely have everything I need to make the new stuff and just resort to the old standards.  That can be very boring.

For instance, last night I made chilli which I usually serve with corn chips, quesadillas or corn bread or the Townhouse cornbread crackers.  I was out of everything and knew I had to figure out  how to make some corn bread with what I had that was going to be tasty and gluten free.  At first I got online and started searching gluten free cornbread until I remembered I have Cook’N Recipe Organizer that has integrated web search.  Oh yes ladies (and gentleman) if you are on the internet and searching for a recipe you can do it from within the program.  You can even capture – save for posterity – your found recipe for later use.  This can be done from any website – whether it’s your favorite foodie blog or sites like Food Network or Food.com.

When I found a recipe I thought would work I immediately set it to Capture.  At this point it told me the recipe was not formatted properly and that I’d have to copy and paste from the original to get it done.  Talk about easy-peasy-lemon squeezy! When I went back to the recipe tab I did not lose the “Add Recipe” tab; it opened next to it so I could see both at the same time!  It took but a few short minutes to transcribe the original to the database form and save.  I was even able to create a new Cookbook for my database called Gluten Free so I can keep track of all my specifically gluten free, typically wheat containing recipes.

This part is going to blow your mind.  At first I thought the Cook’N program was just a pretty face but not going to be useful overall because I don’t take my laptop into the kitchen.  I THOUGHT I’d have to still print out paper to take with me to the kitchen.  BOY WAS I WRONG!!!  There is a companion app on Android that I was able to install on my smartphone (also available for iOS and Kindle Fire).  Not only that IT SYNCS ALL MY CHANGES TO THE CLOUD.  So, I went to the kitchen, launched the app, and voila – there was my Fluffy Gluten Free Corn Bread recipe.  The screen stays awake when I have the app open to a recipe so I don’t have to worry about touching my phone too much while I’m cooking.  I might have to get a kitchen phone stand like the ones for the car to keep my phone at eye level while cooking and to keep it off the counter.

Cook’N Recipe Organizer 11 from DVO Enterprises allows you to –

• Purchase full length, affordable cookbooks to download directly to the software
• Add and edit your own recipes and organize them to your liking
• Capture recipes from anywhere on the internet and organize them to your liking (attribution is always included so you don’t forget where you found your favorites)
• Create shopping lists based on specific recipes
• Menu planning feature helps you get a hold on your whole week or month!
• Mobile app which has full access to your Cook’N recipe library
• Sync to the cloud with your Cook’n cloud account
• Automatically backs up your recipe database on your PC

I did find one little small area that could use improvement.  On the mobile app if you do not already have a shopping list started you cannot create one from the add a recipe to the shopping list dialogue.  You have to go back out to the Home screen, select Shopping Lists from the menu and create one before you can add recipes.  It does add every line item ingredient along with the name of the recipe.  You can remove items to reflect just the things you need to get to complete your meal.  One concern I have is about the cloud account.  I appreciate very much that this feature comes included with the software, but is this for life?  Personally I’d feel more comfortable if the database were something that could be synced via Dropbox or Google Drive.

For an electronic recipe organizer I highly recommend Cook’N Recipe Organizer 11.  It’s available on DVO Enterprises website for $79.95 on CD or direct download (includes free gifts).  This may seem like a bit much for recipe software but if you look at this comparison chart for other available softwares you’ll see that it’s worth every penny.  Not to mention who of us hasn’t paid $30 for ONE cookbook.  If you want to be even more organized with our recipes and meal planning but need the extra help you can also join their Cook’n Club.  For $89.95 per year, or $9.99 per month, they send you free recipes and meal plans every week!

You can win a FREE copy for yourself!  There is a giveaway going on right now on this site until 3/21.  Go here to enter :).

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.