I am not a domestic person. I don’t enjoy sewing, decorating, cleaning, organizing, gardening, etc. if you’re a regular reader of this site, I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you.
I do, however, enjoy cooking. I didn’t used to. But going on 10 years ago I became a vegan (I am a vegetarian now or lapsed vegan) and figured I was either going to starve or live on popcorn (without butter) if I didn’t learn how to cook.
I got some cookbooks and magazines, searched for recipes online and learned how to cook. I started with a couple of recipes, which I now know by heart, and slowly increased the recipes I knew.
I am frequently looking for new “keeper” recipes – recipes that I will make over and over again – and the available online now and so much more extensive and are much prettier than they were 10 years ago.(I guess that’s the 2 in Web 2 point oh).
So, here are three sites to help you locate new recipes. One is my favorite, one is handy and the other is fun. And last but not the list, if you have someone who knows who is a vegetarian and you want to give them something that is edible and good for their health, then sinful vegan is the answer.
Recipezaar
A year ago while searching for vegetarian slow cooker recipes, I discovered Recipezaar. Recipezaar contains a huge database of user contributed recipes. My search for vegetarian recipes resulted in over 35,000 entries. When I refined the search to vegetarian slow cooker recipes I had 413 to choose from.
Recipe searches can be narrowed using the “recipe sifter”. The sifter allows you to filter recipes by ingredient, category, course, preparation, occasion and many others. Prep time is one of my favorite filters – “show me all of the vegetarian side dishes that can be made in 15 minutes.”
I was happy to discover that a feed can be created for the main recipe categories. So, now all new vegetarian recipes appear in my feed reader daily. The amount of recipes that come in is high but since I never clear out my feed reader and use it more as searchable information repository. Someone who must check all feeds and empty the feedreader probably wouldn’t like using the recipe feeds.
Free registration includes the ability to save recipes to your “cookbook”, make a grocery list, create a meal plan, add recipes, review recipes, add photos to recipes, and many other features. There is also a premium membership that costs $24.95 annually. Premium membership includes saving multiple cookbooks, creating custom grocery lists, adding notes to recipes, customized recipe printing, and many more features.
RecipeMatcher
RecipeMatcher allows you to locate recipe using ingredients that you have on hand. Type in the ingredients, the type of cuisine, the main ingredient and then select Search. I tried my search using tofu and carrots, cuisine type vegetarian and I left the main ingredient field blank. I’m not sure if out of tofu and carrots is the primary ingredient. I do, however, almost always have these two things in my fridge.
I got 69 matches and each recipe told me the ingredients that I still needed. I was hoping for simple recipes just using my two ingredients. You can then click on the title of the recipe in which you are interested and get the full details.
The recipe listing could definitely be fleshed out. There is no picture, cook time, prep time, or nutritional information. Since I track my calorie intake per day, I really like to know how many calories are in a recipe.
This site also includes a blog, which is coming soon, and a free sign up. I couldn’t locate anything telling me the benefit of signing up and I was too lazy to try it so I’m assuming it will allow you to submit recipes.
Cookthink
Cookthink allows you to search for recipes based on foods or the type of cuisine you are craving. You can also click on the tabs to select a keyword for ingredient, dish, cuisine or mood. Mood?
Since the first three are obvious searches, I decided to try mood and see what I would get. I went to the mood tab and refreshed the little arrow circle icon and then selected grumpy. The first result was Penne With Tomatoes, Goat Cheese and Thyme. I’m not sure if eating this would make me grumpy or less grumpy. Maybe preparing it would make me grumpy. I don’t know – I don’t really get it. Maybe one of you will have a theory.
The full recipe does include cook and prep time, a photo and also tells you the tools you will need to make the dish. Ok – large pot, colander, large bowl – got it. But, like RecipeMatcher, it does not include the nutritional information.
Signing up for a free account will allow you to save recipes. Apparently Cookthink will recognize what you search, save and email over time and offer recommendations or learn what you like. You personalized recipes and saved information is stored in the section called My Cookthink. Registering also gives you access to the meal builder feature.
Cookthink also some other useful features. The reference section works like a dictionary or encyclopedia of cooking and with it you can acquire more information about cooking terms, such as dicing, or tools needed for certain reciples. There is a food blog, which is update almost daily, and an Amazon store.
So, if you’re cranky and craving pickles this might be just the site for you to locate a new recipe.
Do you like any of these recipe sites? Do you use others? Let me know – I’m especially interested in recipes that include the nutritional information.
photo credit: m kasahara
I love looking at and eating food. Cooking too (lesser degree). Two of my favorite food sites are Nibble Dish and Food Gawker. I like to tweet beautiful and tasty food, at least once a day, to make everyone hungry.
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Hi Gennaro – Thanks for the other sites – I’ll take a look at those.
Thanks, Kim!
Recipezaar looks like a really cool site. I want to start trying to make some different things. It looks like it could be a big help.
Mac and Cheese!
Jim´s last blog post – Awareness Test
Hi Jim – Recipezaar is by far my favorite. I still can’t picture you
cooking.
I use CookingLIght.com a lot. They have nutritional information and I’ve had a lot of success with their recipes.
They do have some vegetarian recipes, too.
I’ll have to try Recipe Matcher and Cookthink. I’ve already tried Recipezaar.
To be completely honest, I get most of my recipes from actual books and magazines. It’s fun to flip through!
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Hi Tracy – I think I’ve used CookingLight too – I’ll have to refresh my
aging memory.
I like magazines too – the thrift store usually has then for 15 cents and
I rip out the recipes that I like.
Thanks for these! I’ve always had trouble searching for recipes — 200 recipes for one dish, how do you choose the one that tastes the way you remember it? These sites will definitely help, although I do need nutritional information, being diabetic.
The one thing on my wishlist is this: I’d prefer only recipes that are really outstanding in taste but don’t have too many ingedients or take forever to make. Taste is obviously a judgment call, but it seems like if people could vote on the taste, we could get an idea from that. I just don’t like bland food. :-)
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Hi Dot – Taste is definitely hard to determine. You might not like things
bland but do you like them spicy? I don’t like bland food either and
usually load it with pepper if it is.
Hi Kim,
So it’s food week this time?
At first, I was a bit repelled by the sight of a lot of carrots :P Reading further I figured out why – Carrots are a vegan’s dreams may be…
These three sites are awesome purely from a technician’s point of view because I could see three different ways of accessing information. RecipeMatcher provides an ajax based search and shortlisting, Cookthink has a wonderful categorized tag cloud where as Recipezaar provides basic ingredient searches and hotsearches.
(However, when I searched for beef in recipematcher, I didn’t get a result for my favorite beef stew. I thought. it’s a very common recipe)
Will check out some non-vegetarian recipes on these sites :)
Cheers,
Ajith
PS: I just wanted to irritate vegans :lol:
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Hi Ajith – I guess you don’t like carrots? I like them a lot but then I
like most vegetables. I actually don’t like fruit very much.
Vegans can be irritating so I can understand wanting to annoy them.
I think people should be vegetarian but never say so or make a big deal
out of the fact that I am. I’ve been one for so long now I really can’t
imagine eating differently.
Actually I love carrots :) especially those steamed baby carrots.
For me all three meals are a mix of veg and non-veg food. Somehow got used to it though everyone in this world knows that human mammals are not really made for and tuned to heavy non-vegetarial meals.
I however don’t prefer high sodium processed foods when it comes to non veg.
(Sorry for the vegan remarks :P )
I so love to cook. I hope these sites will help me in my quest for more, soy, gluten, dairy, legume and sugar, free recipes. We are a rare breed!
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Hi Carla – Wow! That sounds rough – I would have a hard time without soy.
Soy is too “hormonal” for me (raises estrogen levels) and its not good for the thyroid and I lean towards hypo. I can do fermented soy in moderation (miso, tempeh)
Carla´s last blog post – Eco Fashion: Do it yourself – Organic Fabric
these are great finds, well it looks that way kim, i’ll have to explore them. i LOVE to cook, just don’t have time to do it in detail as often as i like. ever since i’ve been trying to learn to cook the right foods for my weight loss, i’ve been trying different recipes, so these sites comes in handy.
Hi Natural – Me too – I don’t really have time for it either. When I’m super
organized, which happens in spurts, I do most of my cooking for the week on the weekends.
How’s the weight loss going? I use The Daily Plate – http://www.thedailyplate.com to track what I eat and it really works for me.
I’ve lost 17 lbs. and a friend of mine lost 24.
I like the idea of putting in ingredients and having the site concoct a recipe plan for me. I have lots of odds and ends by the end of the week that could be put to good use that way.
~ Kristi
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Hi Kristi – I usually make a stew out of the odds and ends. To get people
excited about it I call it ‘Country Captain’s Stew” although it really doesn’t
mean anything ;-)
Very nice! Thanks for posting these! Up until recently, mostly what I’ve done is google for recipes I’m looking for (or just search Martha’s site.) I need more variety in my cooking…
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Hi Lisa.
You will able to lose hours going through recipes on these sites.
If I actually still cooked I’d probably be very interested in those sites.
:)
Do you take a mulit-vitamin?
And my, you are just one suprise after another, Kim.
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Hi Jannie – I don’t take vitamins. I used to buy they tend to upset my
stomach. Overall I’m mostly healthy so I think I’m good.
I don’t mean to be surprising – maybe I defy my readers expecations ;-)
Hi Kim – Thank you. I’m always looking for new recipe sites. It’s easier to make my own stuff now that I’m working at home again. When I was at the office until late I used to eat too much ready made crap. It’s so bad for you and it doesn’t taste great either.
The only problem I am finding with some US recipe sites is that you use different measurements for the ingredients than the ones we use in the UK, so I have to convert everything.
Hi Cath – Seriously, when will the US join the rest of the world with the
metric system? Although someone did mention to me that converting
would be very expensive. Heck, we can’t even figure out how to
distribute coupons for digital tv converter boxes.
RSS feed from Recipezaar–what a great idea. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and am always looking for new recipes. @TraceyHolinka
Hi Tracey – Wow! 20 years. It must have been a lot harder depending
on where you lived. Grocery stores didn’t carry tofu and the veg products
back then that they do now.
Just be careful with the RSS feed – there are a lot of recipes coming through :-)
Eastern Europe in the very early 90s wasn’t so easy (though the meat was scary due to bad refrigeration). Love the many recipe coming through–already plan on making a few.