I, like many others, enjoy cooking, especially when I’ve got the time (and patience) to work up something magical in the kitchen department. It’s something that helps take my mind off other things and the results are (mostly) very good! Cooking is a mixture of own knowledge as well as some improvisation thrown in, and you don’t necessarily have to be able to follow a cookbook to be able to cook.
But if you are just starting out cooking, or you can’t be bothered (or you don’t trust yourself) to rustle something up from the leftovers in the fridge, then you’ll need a cookbook. There is one problem with this, though. Go into your local bookshop and just look at the range available. It is almost impossible to distinguish between them, and the choice available is enough to give some people a headache. Your next solution is to turn to the internet, but there is still a mind-boggling array of recipe websites. Searching for “recipe” on Google yields a staggering 735 million results! What you want is a simple, easy-to-use website along with simple, easy-to-cook recipes to match.
The range of cookbooks is overwhelming and sometimes excessive
Well, that’s what the makes of Recipefy have envisioned. No more hunting through shelves of cookbooks in the local bookstore or trawling through endless recipe reviews on the Internet. Recipefy is a great solution for people who are starting off cooking or for those who are experienced and want to share their dishes with other people. Let’s have a look at it in a bit more detail.
Introduction
Think of Recipefy as a social network for recipes. You can explore other recipes that users have uploaded or you can upload your own for others to try out and rate!
The home page of Recipefy
Signing up to Recipefy is free and you can connect to it using your Facebook, Twitter or Google Account, which avoids the need for having a separate account. Once you’ve signed up, you can create a profile page where users can find out a bit more about who you are and where you are from. The location setting can help if you are looking for recipes from a certain cuisine (French, for example).
Your own personal profile page in Recipefy
Once you’ve set up your profile, you are greeted by the My Cookbook view, which shows any recipes you’ve uploaded or any from other users that you have added to it.
Exploring Recipes
Searching for a particular recipe is nice and simple in Recipefy. You simply click on Explore Recipes and the list of recipes from your location (in my case the United Kingdom) show up. You can sort the list of recipes by appetisers (starters), main courses, side dishes and desserts.
Exploring different recipes in Recipefy
When it comes to viewing a recipe, you get a list of the ingredients and the steps involved in preparing the recipe. Note that measurements are often given in local units, so U.S. users wanting to browse recipes from other countries will have to convert the measurements from metric to U.S. units beforehand (there is no automatic conversation system on the website).
Viewing a recipe
Recipefy also handily gives the amount of preparation and cooking time needed, and a difficulty rating of the recipe based on the contributor. You can like and comment on recipes, making it a little more like a social network and this also enables you to pick out the top recipes without committing to buying all the ingredients!
Uploading Your Own
If you’re feeling adventurous enough, you can also upload your very own culinary creations to Recipefy and share them with others. Adding a recipe is extremely simple. You enter all the information about your recipe (ingredients, method, preparation and cooking time and so on), whack up a photo of the finished goods and send it off! If you’re feeling really generous, you can also add photographs to each step of the process.
Adding a recipe in Recipefy
When you’re finished, your recipe will be up for everyone to see, like and comment on and, hopefully, try out themselves!
Friends
As Recipefy is a social network for your recipes, you’ve also got the option of following friends on it. Following friends on Recipefy means that you receive their recipes the moment they publish them, and is an easy way to broaden your culinary horizons. Following people from different parts of the world can also help you discover new tastes and experience different cuisines!
Finding your friends in Recipefy is quick and easy
You can search for any friends on Recipefy using your Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter contacts, or by searching via their e-mail address. To spread the word, you can also invite friends to Recipefy directly from the application via e-mail.
Conclusion
Recipefy is a great example of a simple, easy-to-use web app with a clean interface and some great little features built in. If you are a keen chef who wants to get your recipe ideas out beyond the four walls of your kitchen, or if you are someone looking to start cooking and need some inspiration then Recipefy is designed for you.
Yes, it’s not packed full of other features like other similar websites. But do you really need these? I for one don’t, and I am someone who goes by the motto, “Quality, not quantity”. This is the case with Recipefy, and it does not fail to impress. And with over 2,000 recipes in their database currently (with more being added regularly), you’re sure to find something to tickle your tastebuds.