Tutorials for Now You’re Cooking! Recipe Software

A series of tutorial demos are provided in this section for users who prefer to learn by doing. While they do not replace reading the manual, they do provide basic instruction on the more common and useful NYC features. The demos are organized in the same order that you should think about NYC activities:

recipes > meal plans > shopping list > cost

Cookbook Overview

Recipes are organized into cookbooks; you can have as many cookbooks as you want, and each cookbook can hold thousands of recipes (maximum of about 5000 per cookbook is recommended).

· Select Recipes... Recipes... (or use the R toolbar button) to list recipes in your open cookbook.

· Select (click) the “poultry” category.

See how easy it is to find to your recipes? now let’s print a recipe:

· Select (click) “Chicken Barley Soup” in the list of recipes.

· Select Print from the menu to print the recipe.

You can print it in standard form or as an index card:

· In the Select Recipe Print Format window, press the Print button.

If you want to delete a recipe from the open cookbook:

· Select a recipe (or multi-select several) and press the Delete… button.

· At the prompt, confirm your decision to delete (skip this step to avoid deletion).

If you want to view a recipe:

· Double-click “Chicken Barley Soup” in the list of recipes.

If you need to modify this same recipe:

· Press the Edit... button on the recipe window, if not already in edit mode.

· Press the Cancel button to return to the recipe selection window.

You can also add your own recipes:

· Select File… New Recipe… with the recipe edit window open. Enter a recipe name. Press Save, then Close.

The new recipe now appears in your list of recipes; you can go back later and add ingredients to it.

· Close the window.

Enter a New Recipe

You can add your own recipes and you can import recipes created by others. To add one:

· Select Recipes… Recipes… (or use the R toolbar button) to list recipes in your cookbook.

· Select File… New Recipe… with the recipe edit window open to enter a new recipe.

· Enter a recipe name and ingredients in the appropriate text boxes. Press Add to add each.

Use the droplists to keep your descriptions consistent across your cookbook. Enter the rest of the recipe:

· Press the Directions… button to enter recipe directions.

· Press the Categories… button to assign the recipe to categories (optional).

· Press the Image… button to assign a graphic image to this recipe (optional).

· Press the Rating… button to enter your ratings for this recipe (optional).

· Press the Save button to save the new recipe.

Droplists are updated automatically when you save the recipe.

· Close the recipe edit window and you now see the new recipe name in the list.

Download Online Recipes

This is ABSOLUTELY THE FASTEST way to build large cookbooks!

· Select File... Quick Web Recipes (easy)... .

· In the file list, select one or more files and press the button labeled “Download, Unzip, and Import”.

· Alternatively, you can just double-click a file in the list in lieu of selecting files and pressing the button.

There are about a half million recipes on the internet that you can download for free and import this way into NYC.

Import Recipes

This is a good way to increase the recipes in your cookbooks!

· Select File... Import Recipes... (or use the Import Recipes toolbar button).

· In the Select File... dialog box, select the file “mmrecipe.mmf” (a Meal-Master^TMfile).

· Press OK.

You just imported 108 recipes. Import more files as follows:

· In the Import Conversion Status window, press the Import More... button.

Let’s try importing more than one file at a time, then exit the import routine:

· In the Select File... dialog box, select the files “generic.txt” (a generic text file) and “mcrecipe.mxp” (a Mastercook^TM file); press OK.

· Close all windows.

Please note that you could also have multi-selected all three files at once and imported them in one operation. After importing these additional recipes, you should have 141 recipes in your open cookbook; later you can download thousands more from the NYC website and import them the same way, or use NYC’s File… Quick Web Recipes… feature to automate the download, unzip, and import process.

For recipes in no particular format, you can copy then paste them into the Screen Import window like this:

· In your application’s window (e.g., browser, word-processor), select the recipe(s) and copy to Clipboard (Cntl-C, or Edit… Copy…).

· In NYC, Select Recipes… Screen Import…

· Paste the recipe into the text box (Cntl-V, or Edit… Paste…, or right-click and select Paste from the popup menu).

· Highlight a recipe component (name, categories, ingredients, directions, etc) then press the corresponding button to identify it.

· When all components are identified that you want in the recipe, press the Import button.

Delete Duplicate Recipes Across Cookbooks

· Select Tools… Data Management… Cookbooks tab.

· In the Tools window, find the Across Cookbooks frame and press the Kill Duplicate Recipes... button.

You may only see one cookbook in the list because you have not created any others.

· In the Kill Dupes Across Cookbooks window, press the Kill Dupes button.

It won’t find any dupes unless you previously imported with dupe check turned off.

· Close the Kill Dupes Across Cookbooks window.

Auto-Categorize Recipes (Customize)

· Select Recipes... Assign Recipes... (or use the Assign Recipes toolbar button).

You need to “unassign” recipes first to give the auto-assign feature something to do:

· Press Unassign All button to uncategorize all recipes.

Now you have some uncategorized recipes to be categorized:

· Press the Go button in the “Auto-Assign using” frame to auto-categorize all unassigned recipes.

· Click on “cajun” and “poultry” categories to display recipes that were auto-categorized.

· Close the Assign Recipes to Categories window.

To customize auto-assign to categorize the way the you think:

· Select Tools... Data Management... Categories tab.

· In the Tools window, press the Customize Auto-Assign... button.

· Click on “african”, “appetizer”, “beverage”, and “cajun” category strings to display the keywords used for the auto-assign feature.

Change keyword strings or add to them to customize how NYC performs the auto-categorizing function.

· Close the Select Keywords for Auto-Assign window.

Search For Recipes

This works best if you already have imported the sample import recipes, giving you a total of 141 recipes to search in your open cookbook. You can have unlimited number of NYC cookbooks and each cookbook can have thousands of recipes, so you could be doing this search across 10,000 or more recipes.

· Select Recipes… Recipes… from the main menu (or use the R toolbar button).

· Select the “all recipes” radio button if not already selected (so the search is across categories).

· If you have several cookbooks, press the Search… button and select “all cookbooks”, so the search is across all available cookbooks in the folder with your open cookbook.

To find all recipes with the word “beans” or the word “rice” in the recipe name:

· In the search window, type “beans rice” in the keywords textbox and press Search.

To find all recipes with both the words “beans” and “rice” in the recipe name:

· In the search window, click the “all of” radio button and press Search.

To find all recipes with both the words “beans” and “rice” in the recipe name or the ingredients:

· Leaving the “recipe name” checkbox check, also check the “ingredients” checkbox.

· Press Search .

To find all recipes that use a wok:

· In the keywords textbox, type the word “wok”.

· Uncheck the “name” checkbox, and check the “directions” checkbox.

· Press the Search button in the Search window.

The other day, we searched 30,000 recipes for “root beer” this way and found 4 original root beer recipes!

· Close all windows.

Create a Menu Plan and Shopping List

You can have as many menu plans as you want: each has an associated shopping list.

· Select Menu… Plan… (or use the M toolbar button) to start a new meal plan.

· Select a beginning and ending date for the meal plan. Press OK.

To build a menu:

· Click a meal then click a recipe or two from the recipe list.

· Click another meal, and click a recipe to add to it.

You can also add individual items (non-recipes) to your menu plan:

· Press the Add Items… button.

· Select an item from the droplist, and a quantity and unit, then press Apply.

· Press Save to save the menu, providing a menu name; type “mymenu” (this creates a menu named “mymenu.mnu” and a shopping list named “mymenu.shp”).

· Press View Saved to view the saved menu.

· Close the meal plan window.

To see the shopping list that was created:

· Select Shopping… List… or press the S toolbar button.

Obtain a Shopping List Organized By Aisle

You need to have already created a shopping list by saving a meal plan.

· Select View… Shopping > List By Aisle.

This shows you the list organized by aisle for your default store. To see the shopping list organized by aisle for a different store:

· Select a different store from the droplist.

If you want to print the list by aisle:

· Press the Print button.

List is printed sorted by aisle so you can efficiently shop. NYC will even flag coupons you have on file for items in your shopping list. Note that you need to replace NYC’s template stores and aisles with your real ones using Shopping… Stores… and Aisles…

· Close the window.

Obtain Cost of Shopping List Across Stores

· Select View…Shopping > List Cost.

· Select a shopping list in the dialog’s listbox and press OK.

The shopping list cost is calculated and displayed for all stores on file. In the bottom grid you see the shopping list with low price and low price store listed. Note that to use this feature you need to replace NYC’s template price list with your real one using Shopping… Prices…

· Close the window.

Back to Now You're Cooking! Recipe Software

Last Updated: 1/23/2005 2:49 PM

Tutorials for Now You’re Cooking! Recipe Software

See how easy it is to find to your recipes? now let’s print a recipe:

You can print it in standard form or as an index card:

If you want to delete a recipe from the open cookbook:

If you want to view a recipe:

If you need to modify this same recipe:

Import Recipes

You may only see one cookbook in the list because you have not created any others.

Food-for-Thought Software techsprt@loginetics.com