Allrecipes.com

I am having a torrid affair with allrecipes.com.  I have been, actually, for about three years now. I try to convert others on a rather regular basis and present them with the tastiest Kool-Aid I can find, but most of the time they scoff. “You are so funny about that website” they say. But, oh! If only they would taste the sweet, golden nectar of the All Recipes Dot Com  Kool-Aid. They would be proselytizing, too!

My sister is the one that got me to drink the All Recipes  Kool-Aid and once I did, I have never looked back.

Seriously.

Best drink I’ve ever had.

You can store all of your family favorites in there—and then there really is no reason to keep all that clutter of 87-bajillion cookbooks because of that ONE recipe. Take the time to go through them all, type those recipes into your online recipe box and then send those books to Charity.

See how awesome Allrecipes.com is?

It’s the site that just keeps on giving.

Good food AND a DE-cluttered house.

Ready to drink the Kool-Aid yet?

Another thing I love is that they have a rating system, and when I follow the system I invented for myself, I have never made anything from this site that isn’t out of this world awesome!

1. Has to have 4.5 stars or more

2. Has to have been reviewed more than 200 times.

3. The more people that have saved it to their recipe box, the better I know the recipe is going to be.

Take, for example, this French Toast Casserole:

• 4.5 stars
• 673 reviews
• 63, 887 people have saved it.

You know what? IT’S FREAKING AWESOME, TOO!

The other thing I love is that I can enter ingredients that I have on hand, and it will find me recipes to make with those particular ingredients.  This is awesome for the last few days of my meal planning cycle—I can usually get 17 days of meals out of a 14 day menu cycle when I do this.

Also, it’s a great way to get out of the cooking rut. We all get there—in the “rut”—cooking the same 5 things every single week. Totally Boring.

This little feature helps you explore new recipes and you don’t have to worry about if it’s good or not. In the past, that was always a big deterrent for me when presented with trying new recipes—it looks good in the book, but what if it tastes like dog crap?

It’s like Russian Roulette with your mouth.

Homey don’t play that. 

BUT! If you follow my system up there, more than likely it will rock your palate!

The last thing I love is this: The Dinner Spinner.

Oh my heavens to Betsy! It is a glorious tool! I have all my favorites right at my finger tips—in my handy dandy little iPhone.  I seriously have no more excuses for not cooking healthy meals for everyone. I highly recommend this App—you can get it on the Droid, too.

This App makes it possible for those rare times when you feel like being nice. You know, the times when you decide while you’re at Wal-mart that you want to make the kids their favorite Buttermilk Pancakes for breakfast, but you can’t remember what goes in the recipe? You could, if you had this App.  No more trying to remember all the secret ingredients—just pull up the dinner spinner and you’ll be good as gold!

You can also add the recipe to an on going SHOPPING LIST – see how it just keeps on giving?

Or, if one of your family members loves what you brought to the annual Super Bowl Party last year and she wants to make it this time, you can simply send her an email—straight from the site. No more retyping recipes. You can also print it as a recipe card if that floats your boat or share it on Facebook.  Which is what I like to do: “I made this for dinner and it’s only 9:30am—what have you done this morning.” 

(Just kidding. Not really. Only sort of.)

Seriously, I could keep on going about all the ways allrecipes.com will rock your world. Because seriously,  it will. I bet they are even right now, as I type this out,  trying to figure out how to get the site to walk the dog. I mean they have already figured out how to help us de-clutter—now all we need is for it to walk the naughty dog.

Wanna drink my Kool-Aid?

Disclaimer: I was not paid one single dime or even warm fuzzy foo-foos for this post. It is simply because I am converted and want to share the good news of the All Recipes Gospel.