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Cook'n Recipe Organizer 11 Review & Giveaway

Update:
Congratulations to Terry from Montana, our Cook'n Recipe Organizer winner!

I cook and bake a lot. My husband and I alternate dinner cooking weeks, but even if it's not my week, you can be sure I'm in the kitchen making bread, cookies, brownies, and danish. We have a section in the kitchen with all our cookbooks, a stack of cooking magazines, printouts from online sources, and bookmarked websites, but nothing really consolidates this into one neat package.

Cook'n Recipe Organizer, considered the "#1 best selling recipe organizer," offers a way to organize all my recipes so I can stay on top of what my dinner and baking options are. Since I often have multiple versions of a recipe (the quick vs the full meal, the low sugar version, the vegetarian version, etc), having a one-stop shop for everything I make would be a problem solver in our house.

Some of the features in Cook'n Recipe Organizer 11 include:

  • Easy sharing of recipes
  • Make menus and meal plans
  • Add photos and stories
  • Get nutritional facts
  • Shopping list generator
  • Import and organize Pinterest recipes
  • Scan or photograph printed recipes

By using the menu planner, you can save money by planning ahead so you are ready at the store, choosing foods that make sense rather than impulse buys. We used to live in Minneapolis and had our groceries delivered weekly. By planning and ordering online, I nearly always kept to my $100 weekly budget. Now that I have to go in the store, it's way more difficult, so careful planning helps keep me a bit closer to my goal. Admittedly, we often hit $130-140 now that our daughter is older, but we're doing good by being great meal planners.

There aren't many cookbooks and recipe websites that let you analyze the nutrition of a meal. I love that Cook'n can do that, even for the meals you enter yourself. Rather than living on Weight Watchers diet books (sorry WW fans!), you can know what's in the meals you create.

You can use the Snip-It tool to capture recipes from blogs and other websites now too. So basically, it's one tool for everything recipe-related!

Sounds awesome, eh?

Now for the downside - I do not like the software's visual and interaction design pattern. What does that mean, you ask? It means that my day job means I'm super picky and have high expectations for software and websites. I expect great products to offer a great experience, not just have great features. If it's hard to use, unpleasant to look at, dated, or possible not accessible, then I get crabby. Cook'n needs a major visual overhaul to keep up with the times. A modern, fresh approach to the design would blow every other recipe program out of the water.

Taking it a step further would mean going with a full web app rather than software, but that's a bigger project for these app creators. I'm thinking the visual and the platform could happen together but I completely know that's not small feat. It could take a while.

Curious to know more about what this program does? Check out my first time experience on YouTube. You'll see what I mean about the visual design, but at the same time, get a nice inside look at an interesting, unique software product.

Normally, you'd pay $79.95 for this software, but I'm giving away one license (it's mac-friendly!) through Tomoson and DVO Enterprises. You want a way to organize all your recipes? This is your chance to try it out! Be sure to enter the giveaway by February 15, 2014 for your chance to win!

While you're waiting to hear if you've won, visit the Cook'n Recipe Organizer Facebook page and Pinterest account to learn more about this very unique software product.

THE GIVEAWAY
I have one downloadable copy of Cook'n Recipe Organizer 11 to give away to one lucky blog reader!

This giveaway will run until February 15, 2014. Please feel free to spread the word about this giveaway. The software runs on both mac and PC systems.

The giveaway is open to US residents over 18. A winner will be randomly chosen by Rafflecopter. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to the announcement email or a new winner will be announced. The giveaway prize is sponsored by DVO Enterprises.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FTC compliance: While I did receive product samples at no charge for review purposes, I was not compensated for this post and all opinions are my own. This event is in no way associated with Facebook or Twitter. 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.

Comments

  1. I visit hundreds of websites to locate recipes then bookmark on my computer (until my computer crashed). I also pin recipes to my Pinterest pages. In addition, I use my mother's cookbooks and recipes from many, many years ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you keep your mother's old cookbooks in the kitchen or have you written down some of the ones you like most to keep in a box?

      Delete
  2. I have so many websites I go to. However, if I find a favorite recipe, I pin it to Pinterest for future reference. I bookmark other websites as well.

    ReplyDelete

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