Spice Up Dinner With Some Help From Favorite Recipes On iPhone, Plus A Chance To Win A Copy!
Favorite Recipes ($0.99) by CulinartMedia, Inc. puts a world of culinary knowledge on a user's iPhone. Thanks to a recent update, Favorite Recipes now includes Facebook integration as well as a new voiceover for the video tips section, which was designed to appeal to an American audience.
As part of the iCook2Day series of applications, Favorite Recipes aims to educate and simplify the cooking process for its users. Favorite Recipes allows the user to prepare a single dish or plan an entire menu. The additional shopping list function simplifies gathering the ingredients, which will bring a cook's menu to life.
Navigating the UI is a snap thanks to the app's menus. Users can explore the recipe section, which is broken down into a number of typical categories (i.e. appetizers, salads, desserts). The application includes over 70 recipes which draw on a range of international cuisine, but emphasize Italian fare.
Each recipe includes the number of servings, prep time, cooking time, and difficulty rating.
The user can access the shopping list feature whether they plan to cook just one dish from the app or many. Add items to the shopping list directly from the recipe. A user can add all of the recipe's items at once, or choose to add only certain items.
The shopper can edit the list to include anything else they might want to purchase, but unfortunately user-added items will be categorized as "other" instead of by shopping aisle. This lessens the overall utility of the list feature significantly.
Favorite Recipes also includes video tips which were chosen with care to maximize both brevity and utility. These tips include helpful lessons such as how to make crêpes or peel shrimp.
It is worth noting that while most sections of the application work only in portrait mode, Favorite Cooking's videos only function with the iPhone in landscape orientation. In addition, all of the apps photos work only in landscape as well. Though this is odd, switching between portrait and landscape was not too distracting in practice.
Favorite Recipes will be a boon to the beginning cook. The large variety of recipes in this app, even those such as Osso Bucco alla Milanese, are easy to make. Most recipes have preparation times of 20 minutes or less, though cooking times vary.
We've teamed up with the developers to give our readers a chance to win one of three copies of Favorite Recipes! For a chance to win a copy, please leave a comment on this post (with a valid email address, so we can contact you if you are the winner). The contest ends Tuesday, Aug 2, 2011 at 2 p.m. PDT. Good luck!
