The Paprika Recipe Manager for the iPad Is Better Than Ever, And Cheaper Too

The fascinating Paprika Recipe Manager for the iPad recently received a significant update. The app, which debuted late last year to rave reviews, now includes the ability to import recipes from other apps too, among other new features. While other iPad cooking apps like Gourmet Live, Food and Wine and Photo Cooking concentrate on presenting someone else’s recipes, the Paprikia Recipe Manager app is all about managing your own recipes. And, it does this brilliantly. Created by Hindsight Labs LLC, the Paprika Recipe Manager app looks very basic the first time you use it. After all, there are no recipes until you add them yourself. To do so, you use the app’s easy to use “Add Recipe” page. Fill in the recipe’s name and key information, which includes Difficulty, Servings, Cook Time, Category and Rating. You can also add a photo of the recipe and its ingredients. What makes the app special is its ability to source and import recipes found on the web, and now from other cooking apps too. To find and use recipes found on the web, use the app’s browser. Once found, click on the “Save Recipe” button. The app automatically pulls in the recipe’s key information such as its ingredients and recipe steps. Being able to browse and add recipes online is a great feature. It makes it very easy to combine your favorites with those of others. According to its creators, the app works best with most “major recipe” sites. As we concluded late last year, which continues with this update, the importing of recipes is not fool proof. Some recipes we found online did not import successfully, or at all. While others required that we add additional details such as Servings and Cook Time. Overall, however, this process is smooth and very easy to use, and it definitely worked correctly more often than not during our tests. You can also now import recipes from other cooking applications, such as YummySoup, MacGourmet, and MasterCook. To do so you will need to first export a recipe from one of those applications using your PC or Mac. To perform an import, add the file to Paprika via iTunes file sharing. Then navigate to the import recipes screen and select the file to be imported. The currently supported file types are:

.paprikarecipe - Paprika's emailed recipe format.
.ysr - YummySoup export format.
.mgourmet & .mgourmet3 - MacGourmet export format.
.mx2 - MasterCook export format.
.yml - A plain YAML file.

You can also import recipes via email from other Paprika Recipe Manager users. Other updates include:

The meal planner now supports adding custom meals, as well as modifying existing meals.

Each recipe now supports automatic ingredient serving size scaling.

It is now possible to print recipes, grocery lists, and meal plans.

Added a nutritional info field to each recipe. Nutritional info is now automatically saved from sites that provide it.

Improved the copy and paste tools in the browser to make it easier to use, and to support saving more fields.

You can now search recipes by source.

The ingredient search has been improved to allow searching by a comma separated list of keywords.

Added a setting to automatically alphabetize the category list.

Added a timer to the recipe screen.

The browser now has a convenient search bar.

Added the ability to unrate an existing recipe.

Fixed the highlighting on the notes button when a note has been saved.

Notes and nutritional information are now displayed directly below the preparation section.

The meal picker now remembers the last entered meal type instead of always defaulting to Breakfast.