Wow, the holidays are here. Time for food! But what will you cook? Should you go traditional, healthy, vegetarian? How about dessert? And if you’re like me, you have no idea what type of wine to serve with any of this. Well just relax, MacTrast has you covered this holiday season.
Must-Have Recipes from Better Homes and Gardens – FREE
You know your Mom had at least one Better Homes and Gardens red plaid cookbook on her kitchen shelf. You might just find one on yours if you look hard enough. Now you can get all of the best of the best recipes, secrets, and tips free in this app for the iPhone and iPad.
There are over 570 delicious recipes in here, including main dishes, salads and side dishes, casseroles, and not to be left out, yummy desserts.
Features include:
- More than 570 delicious recipes FREE, each with a gorgeous photo
- See any of the 151 how-to videos that guarantee success in your kitchen
- Share recipes by email, Facebook, and Pinterest
- Add notes and substitutions to any recipe, so every dish suits your family’s preferences
- Organize your favorites inside your recipe box
- Personalize the app with more chapters — 101 recipes each — for just 99¢
- Create shopping lists for different stores or special occasions, and check off ingredients as you add them to your cart
- Find just what you’re looking for with advanced filter capabilities
The Must-Have Recipes from Better Homes and Gardens app belongs on any kitchen’s virtual bookshelf, and it’s available FREE in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
How to Cook Everything – $6.99
This app is based on the bestselling cookbook—How to Cook Everything® from New York Times columnist Mark Bittman. It contains 2,000 recipes, 400 how-to illustrations, and a host of features that appeal to cooks on the go.
This app is optimized for both the iPad and iPhone, taking advantage of the unique capabilities of each device.
Features Include:
- The full content of the multiple-award-winning How to Cook Everything®: all 2,000 recipes and variations.
- Bittman’s no-nonsense cooking guidance: how-to illustrations; equipment, technique, and ingredient information; and meal-planning ideas.
- Easy-to-use and flexible search capabilities, including enhanced filters and the ability to browse recipes and reference information.
- Dedicated layouts for portrait and horizontal views, so the information and recipes are easy to follow—from any angle.
- Inspiring photos of weekly featured recipes (iPad only).
- Well-organized and email-friendly shopping lists that make it easy to buy ingredients—and whatever other groceries you need at home.
- The ability to bookmark particular recipe steps and jump with ease among recipes (iPad only).
- Handy built-in timers, placed throughout the recipe steps.
- And more…
All the content is embedded in the app, so if you don’t have a handy internet connection, everything in the app will still be available to you.
The How to Cook Everything app is available for $6.99 for both the iPhone and iPad in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
Paprika Recipe Manager for iPhone – $0.99
This simple recipe management app is for everyone: from aspiring cooks to professional chefs.
The app includes importing capabilities, grocery lists, meal planning and more! THis may just be the most useful cooking companion you’ve ever downloaded!
Paprika Cloud Sync allows you to wirelessly sync between your devices and take your recipes with you everywhere you go!
Features Include:
- Create and modify your own recipes on any device.
- Automatically download recipes from hundreds of websites with a single tap.
- Integrated browser clipboard tools help you clip recipe information from any website.
- Smart recipe view: cross off ingredients when you’re done with them, highlight your current step, and keep the screen on while you are cooking.
- Tools to help you cook: start multiple timers, pin active recipes to easily switch between them, and scale ingredients to your desired serving size.
- Timers are automatically detected in your directions: simply tap on one to start!
- Intelligent grocery list automatically combines your ingredients and sorts them by aisle.
- Use the pantry to keep track of what ingredients you already have.
- AirPrint and email support for recipes, grocery lists, and meal plans. Support for multiple recipe print sizes including index cards.
The Paprika Recipe Manager for iPhone is available for $0.99 in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
Butterball Cookbook Plus – FREE
Butterball is another name that cooks have trusted for years. Now you can download and enjoy hundreds of Butterball recipes to try and enjoy.
If you’re craving turkey, The Butterball Cookbook Plus app is where it’s at! It’s “stuffed” with over 250 great recipes, complete with beautiful photography and simple directions.
This app includes shopping guides, how-to videos, preparation tips, conversation charts and even kitchen timers that will help you roast that Thanksgiving turkey to perfection!
You also get free recipes every month!
Features include:
- Prepare Mode: The Prepare feature provides an enhanced recipe display that makes it easy for a cook to read at a distance.
- Voice Commands: Prepare Butterball recipes hands free with simple voice commands. No need to touch your device screen, simply speak commands to move to the next step, manage timers, view notes [iPad only] and more.
- Stir it Up: Feeling adventurous? Press Stir and Butterball offers a selection of randomly chosen recipes based on a particular search or filter criteria [Shake to Stir on iPhone].
- My Recipe Box: Enables a cook to save their favorite Butterball recipes for easy retrieval, as well as add recipes from a personal collection.
- Network with Friends and Family: Share directly to Facebook, or email any recipe to let friends know what you’ve been cooking.
- Print: Print recipes to any AirPrint™ compatible printer.
You can also personalize and rate recipes, use measurement conversion charts, add ingredients from recipes to a shopping list, and more.
The Butterball Cookbook Plus app is available FREE in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
This app can help you with what some claim is the most important part of any meal – the wine.
“Wine Simplified” takes a unique approach to teaching you about wine. This is accomplished with fun videos and interactives, not tedious text and memorization.
Features Include:
- 90 minutes of video tutorials: Guided video tastings are designed for you to pick up your own wine and follow along at home
- 240 audio pronunciation guides
- Dozens of interactive guided tours and slideshows walk you through complex wine labels, winemaking, shopping, and ordering
- Quick-reference glossary and pop-up tips with key terms and definitions accessible throughout
This app will also help you identify wines you enjoyed, and how to repeat the experience. It will help you pick the perfect wine for every dish, decode wine labels, predict wine styles, and so much more.
Wine Simplified is available for $9.99 in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
Healthy Desserts – by Green Kitchen – $2.99
Healthy Desserts is a source of delicious organic desserts for every sweet tooth out there. All recipes use only natural sweeteners, healthy fats, whole grains and fresh fruit.
If you’re trying to get your family to eat healthier, this might be the place to start!
Features include:
- A good variety of cookies, bars, muffins and smoothies.
- 66 handpicked premium recipes.
- A seamless switch from US to metric units.
- Save your favorites so you can return to them quickly on any device.
- Several stunning photos for each recipe!
- Shopping list: Just email or SMS the ingredients to your iPhone!
- Share or brag about your cookery on Facebook and Twitter!
- All recipes are marked if they are vegan, raw, gluten free, naturally sweetened or whole grain.
- And so much more…
Healthy Desserts is available for $2.99 in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
These apps should help you have a happy and even healthy holiday season. Sorry none of the apps have a built-in Alka-Seltzer finder, that one is left up to you.
