I’m currently trying out a program called Gourmet. I’m a Linux user and this installed easily in Ubuntu. Apparently there is a version for Windows as well, but it doesn’t look like it’s real easy to install and is a bit behind the Linux version.
At first I thought that it would be difficult to use a program to keep track of recipes and shopping lists. But I recently read a statistic that says that most American families use about 10 staple recipes and simply cycle through them. If all you have to worry about is getting 10 recipes into this program and then click on “Add to Shopping List” to have all the ingredients added, this might be useful. Of course, I’m not typical and tend to try all kinds of new foods out. Nonetheless, I do have some recipes I use on a regular basis that could benefit from being in my computer.
Gourmet’s main interface is a searchable list of recipes. Each recipe has a description, ingredients list, notes, and instructions. You can import nutritional information from the USDA database and Gourmet will calculate the nutritional value of a serving of the recipe. It’s much more complete than the nutritional information you find on the sides of boxed food. One handy thing I noticed is that you can add another recipe as an ingredient in a different recipe.
The grocery list automatically adds all the items to your grocery list and allows you to move items off the list into the “pantry.” It tries to remember which are pantry items and which are not. It might be nice to have a pantry inventory feature, but that might get to be too complicated anyway.
It seems like a pretty handy program.
Hello, I have a web version that does pretty much the same thing as this application does. You can see an example of it running at http://www.openeats.org The site also has a Pantry Inventory feature, you can store items in your pantry that will never be added to your shopping list, and it has a quick list feature that allows you to store items on it that you can quickly add to any shopping list.