Product Description

It's a challenge to find time to create new meals for you and your family. With MasterCook Deluxe 8.0, life in the kitchen just got a whole lot easier. Includes 7,000+ recipes with 400+ new baking recipes, grocery lists, personal nutritionist, and much more! ... Read more

Features

• Prepare hundreds of recipes in less than 20 minutes
• Easy meal planning with 7,000+ recipes and expert nutritional analysis
• Quickly search by ingredient, food type, cook time, and more
• Conveniently download to PDA, email, or print shopping lists
• Culinary experts give advice in step-by-step instructional videos

Reviews (3)

The best recipe management software out there!
I have used Master Cook for many years now, and I am very impressed with it's capabilities.I mainly use it for managing and nutritionally analyzing my own recipes, but the recipes that come with the program are also useful, and easy to customize to your own needs.There are many yahoo (and other) groups dedicated to sharing Master Cook recipes in a format that is very easy to download, and the recipe import feature makes it easy to copy and paste recipes in text format (or from websites - including pictures!) in just a few seconds.It can take a while to type in a lot of recipes from books, or initially typing in your collection if you choose to do it all at once, but I think it is worth the effort.I have tried a variety of other recipe software programs (Cook'n, ChefTec - EXPENSIVE, Meal Master, Instant Home Cooking, CookWare, among a few!) and I have found Master Cook to be by far the best value with the most customization abilities, ease of use, and user-friendliness.

Master Cook also has the capability to keep track of your pantry, create shopping lists, plan your menus, search for recipes based on very specific criteria (ingredients to avoid or include, single nutritional items, your personal rating or category, time to make, cost - if you use the shopping section, etc., and combinations of any of these things).

One thing that I don't like about Master Cook are that it *doesn't* include SUGAR or TRANS FATS in the nutritional information (or a custom nutrition capability - that would be handy for calculating weight watchers points!) I contacted ValuSoft about the possibility of adding these and was told that they do *not* expect to add these in the near future.I was disappointed by this because I think that sugar and trans fat are pretty basic items to nutrition - I hope they reconsider!

Overall, I highly recommend this product if you are interested in maintaining and sharing recipes and/or having control over your nutrition.I have enjoyed the ability to modify recipes so that they are healthier for me and my family, and have given this software (and my recipes/cookbooks from it!) to several family members as gifts.

A treasury of information
It's true there are not many pictures, but this software wasn't meant to be eye candy. It was created for functionality and to fill a void in the software market. The program has been around for years, and each edition keeps getting better. In version 8.0, MasterCook includes literally thousands upon thousands of recipes compiled from various cookbooks and textbooks used in home cooking as well as the hospitality industry (such as Food for Fifty, On Cooking, etc). I've found delicious and sometimes difficult to find recipes for petits fours, casseroles, and breads. There are even separate sections for "low carb" and vegetarian recipes. I honestly haven't prepared many of the recipes, but I don't think that could be accomplished in my lifetime!

Each recipe can be customized by adding your own notes, ingredients or modifications on the original recipe. You can choose recipes to compose an entire meal and print out a grocery list of all the ingredients required to make that meal. It makes meal planning on a daily or weekly basis a snap (if you have the time to invest). It also has chapters on preparation methods and definitions of terms used in cooking.

The best part is the nutritional analysis, my main reason for buying this software package. You can enter a recipe from your own archives and receive a fully detailed nutritional analysis of the dish. Despite its overly-complicated interface, it is chocked full of information and retails at an affordable price. This is a fantastic organizational tool for a computer-savvy foodie, a nutritionist, or even a chef. I recommend this software as one of the best recipe organizers and cookbooks available for your PC.

Very few pictures!
It has a lot of recipes, just very few pictures of them! ... Read more

Features

• One-on-one training experience with personal trainer, Maya
• Build a personal profile for creating health and fitness program
• Tutorial mode; fully customizable workouts with 6 focus areas
• Multiple workout locations and music options
• Customizable meal planner; goal oriented with progress monitor

Features

• Over 1100 delicious Betty Crocker recipes, with hundreds of full-color photos
• Easy-to-use interface ; add your own recipes; search by ingredients or keywords
• Create weekly menus and shopping lists automatically from menus
• How-to instructional cooking video clips
• Download recipes and shopping lists to any Palm-based handheld

Reviews (6)

Very Pleased!!
I love this software! It exceeded my expectations. I am so happy with it. I had one question so I called and spoke to a nice gal who helped me. She was very friendly and knowledgeable. I am also very pleased to find that they send me more recipes for free each month in the form of a cooking newsletter. I highly recommend this to everyone.

Works for me!
Installed on XP Pro on laptop and desktop without any problems (or patches). Does everything I need and has great recipes.

Don't buy it
I downloaded and installed the XP patch, thinking that would prevent it from crashing - but it didn't help. Every time I add a recipe (which is a trial in itself) or create a menu, it crashes. I'm have to accept that I wasted my money and go back to my old Mastercook software. Don't waste your money on it too.

Great product from a great company.
I've been very pleased with my Cook'n software so far. Browsing recipes is quick, and I especially like the search feature where you type in ingredients and it finds all the matching recipes. I also like looking through the pictures of the Betty Crocker recipes. It's helpful to see how a dish will look before making it. The menus and shopping list features are fun because it will tell you what you need to buy, although the pricing information doesn't seem quite accurate. I was also delighted to find that there are additional recipe sets that are available from the company for download or on CD. They have lots of cooking related stuff, and are very friendly and helpful, based on the response to some questions I emailed to them.

Nice program, easy too
I'm not a computer person, but I received this from my husband for Christmas and I really like it. The Betty Crocker recipes are nice (pictures too), and I'm also using it to keep my own recipes on the computer.

The program is nice and straightforward, and the recipes are organized into cookbooks and chapters. Adding recipes is easy because it will fill in the ingredients as you type, so it goes fast. I had a few questions at first, but their tech support was great (I spoke to a real person!) I also like the printing options, although they need to add a print preview feature.

Once I learned the basics, I was surprised at how much flexibility there is. You can add ingredients, do shopping lists, menus, and even plan out 6-months or more. Overall, I recommend it especially if you have tons of recipe cards and scraps of paper all over the place! ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

If you collect Junior League cookbooks and covet your yellowed recipe cards from Grandma, this might be the cooking program for you. Many of the 600 recipes in Cook'n with Taste of Home will bring back memories: green bean casserole, Jell-O salads, church supper hot dishes--they're all here. As the box says, "Forget running to a specialty store for goat cheese or sun-dried tomatoes, these recipes call only for ingredients you have right on hand." If you must have your feta, find another program. But if cheddar's OK by you, read on.

The recipes here are all family fare and comfort food; pot roast, Instant Party Potatoes, and a cake that actually has Coca-Cola among the ingredients were a few that caused flashbacks. Interestingly, we also found recipes for venison and pheasant--ingredients we don't usually "have right on hand."

This CD-ROM is easier to navigate than some of the other Cook'n titles, and the production quality of the tutorial videos sprinkled throughout the program is also improved. Cooks can adjust the main page to browse by category, ingredient, or photograph (500 out of 600 recipes have pictures). There are 10chapters of recipes, which range from main dishes to soups to salads to desserts.

This program quickly jumps through all of the hoops we expect cooking CD-ROMs to manage: it adjusts serving sizes, compiles shopping lists and nutritional analysis charts from recipes, helps cooks find recipes based on what they have in the cupboard, and creates weekly, even yearly, menus for the ultra-organized. Recipes and shopping lists can be downloaded onto Palm Pilots, and old-fashioned folks can print these recipes on three-by-five cards (not provided with the program).

For truly nonintuitive cooks, this program will translate the recipe's required 2 cups of tomato sauce into the required number of cans you must buy, then give you a choice of whether you want to put Hunts, Progresso, or Classico on the list for when you swing by the store. We think this is a bit much: at some point, the anal-retentive capabilities of these cooking programs will bog cooks down just as much as sloppily filed index cards from Granny. We'd rather see more recipes and fewer brand names. --Anne Erickson ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Awesome Software
I purchased this software, just so I could download grocery lists into the palm for grocery store shopping. I soon discovered it could do much more for me. I am always asked by friends to write down my recipes...now, it's just a click away. No more looking for pen and paper and writing it a hundred times.
I can even print the recipes out using decorative cards. I finally have a recipe box that everything is a uniform size,legible, and decorative at the same time. I just can't say enough about this awesome software!

Some software bugs- but not bad
There are two reasons to buy recipe software. The first is for the recipes. I did not buy the software for the recipes and I have not tried any recipes. I bought it for the second reason: to manage my recipes using their software. Generally the software works and it is better than the old DOS based software that I have used for years. There are some problems:

1) When printing, you can not specify how many copies you want. Each time you print, you must go through the whole routine.

2) Once you assign a recipe to a category, it stays. As far as I can tell you can not unassign a category.

3) The documentation is poor. The user has to be willing to experiment to figure out how it works. For example, the "Close" button is really a "Save and Close". If you use the little x in the upper right hand corner, nothing is saved.

4) On my computer, the mouse is deactivated whenever a pop-up box appears. To get my mouse working again, I have to press the tab key. This is true for the print box, the intro box, the exit box, etc...

I e-mailed DVO about problems 2 and 4. For problem 2, I received no response (I sent 3 e-mails on this problem). On Problem 4, I received a prompt response requesting more information. I responded. I waited. After a couple of weeks, I was told that I my problem is unique. It might be my mouse driver. I downloaded a new mouse driver from Microsoft. No change. I have over fifty programs on my system. The only place this problem appears is on DVO software. I may have a system problem, but, something DVO is doing is contributing.

This software is better than my old software. The software does have some nice features such scaling the menu for the number of servings requested and allowing photographs to be attached to recipes. I will continue using it but I have not ceased looking for better program. Maybe DVO will read this and fix the weaknesses.

I never tried the software with my PDA since it does not work with Pocket PC's. It likes the Palm OS.

The menu planner seems to work.

NOTE:

After I posted this review, DVO sent me an e-mail on how to delete categories from recipes. It works, but the documention still is missing this piece of information.

From the Pres...
As the President of DVO and developer of this software, I couldn't help but respond to the comments written in the last review...especially since the reviewer said "Maybe DVO will read this and fix the weaknesses."

I will fix the weaknesses as soon as I find one. The truth is, I was quite surprised by some of the claims made regarding the "Close" button really being a "Save and Close" and nothing being saved if you "use the little x in the upper right hand corner."

The guy sounds very nice and he seems sincere so the nicest word I can think of to describe his comments is INACCURATE. It's true, the documentation could be better and allowing the user to specify how many copies he wants to print could be explained better.

However, the other statements are totally incorrect and it is unfortunate because they misrepresent this product. My support people turn around support e-mail messages within 24 hours. They are available via telephone, e-mail, and online chat. My e-mail address is made available to all customers. It can be found on the home page of my web site: www.dvo.com.

I can't think of any other way to help confused people like the author of the last review...who recently converted from DOS to Windows. I guess I could include a thicker User's Guide but many times that confuses people like him even more. I figure I'd rather make myself and my staff available to answer any questions that may come up because no matter how thick the manual, someone will always have a question.

That's my philosophy and it is very different from most of my competitors who do not offer telephone support or the e-mail address to the President and developer.

We also offer a free monthly newsletter, free software updates, additional recipe downloads for free, and much more. If I give away anything else, my wife will have my head!

I hope this helps someone out there. I don't know if it's good for the President and developer to write a review about his own product...but I just couldn't help it. (...)

taste of home cookbook awesome
i use the cookbook at home and at work,,i work at a mission so the big recipes are cool,,the sloppy joe recipe i use is the best mix ive had..

Mom Loved the Program
I got this for my mom as a Christmas present. She was looking for a way for storing her recipes on the computer. She loves how simple the program is to setup and get started. She set up her own cookbook with chapters she wanted and started adding recipes with 30 minutes. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

With more than 6,000 recipes and an impressive array of organizationaltools, Cook'n Deluxe wants to liberate your computer from the drudgery of officework and turn it into a kitchen helper.

Cook'n Deluxe, a Windows-only program, adeptly performs all of the usual tasksexpected of cooking CD-ROMs. Menu planners and recipe managers take the gruntwork out of deciding what to cook and adjusting recipe amounts. One excellent,and very thorough, feature is the Grocery Shopping Assistant. Cooks decide on arecipe, open it, click on "list," and a grocery list appears, complete withpreferred brand names, package sizes, estimated cost of the shopping trip, and anutritional workup of the meal. With a couple of clicks, not only do we have ashopping list for Dixie Grits Casserole ($16.95), we also discover that oneserving contains 19 grams of fat. Hardcore cybershoppers can send all of thisinformation to their PalmPilot and hit the aisles.

The recipes are broken down into 70 cookbooks: Farmer's Market, Never Say Leftovers, Cooking on the Run, and 50 Pies are some of the titles. Recipes rangefrom Corn Dog Squares to Choucroute Garni (sauerkraut and meat). We would haveliked to see more fresh ingredients and a few more basics--there was no plainapple pie among the 50 Pies--but cooks can remedy that by entering their ownrecipes. An Enter the Ingredients section allows cooks to tally up whatever'ssitting in the pantry, and search the entire database for recipes that match.Some recipes have accompanying photos, and a small handful have instructionalvideos that feel like filler--is it really necessary to demonstrate wrappingrolls in foil?

Cook'n Deluxe is a friendly program that's easy to use. Its strongest featuresare the amount of recipes it offers, and that "too much information" shoppinglist feature. The flavorless videos are probably this CD-ROM's weakest area,though the producers redeem themselves by hiding a yummy blooper reel of thecooking experts' goof-ups within the program. --Anne Erickson ... Read more

Reviews (20)

Good Software, poor support
Were it not for the glitches, this would be a great piece of software.

My main complaint is that each time I update it with their latest software (which includes new recipes), instead of overwriting the existing recipes, it simply adds them again. So, after the installation and two updates, I now have 3 of every recipe.

This is annoying on many levels. I've contacted customer support and their seeming automaton tells me to update to the latest version. Well...that's what is causing the problems.

I'm a Microsoft engineer so I'm not computer-stupid. The software has some serious flaws.

Buy at your own risk.

Great Software...Great Company
The more I learn about this software and the company that created it, the more impressed I am. They created the first version 12 years ago and cooking software is all they do.

Rather than selling upgrades every six months to make a buck, they fix problems and add new features on a monthly basis and let all of their customers download updates for free. What more could you ask for?

I bought this because it sounded neat but now I must say that I'm a believer. The software works great and the company supports the product very well. They send me a free monthly newsletter with cooking tips and recipes that I can download right into my software. The President himself even gives out his e-mail address and encourages his customers to send feedback.

I've checked out some of the other brands like MasterCook but none of them even come close to Cook'n.

I highly recommend this product.

Very buggy software
This is absolutely the worst software program I've ever purchased. Half the time I open it it's exits because of a fatal error. The instructions tell you when you have this type of error, that is usually due to hard disk errors, but after running scandisk to repair any errors, I still get the error. Usually when I read this kind of review, I think it might be the lack of computer knowledge of the user, but I'm a computer programmer, so I very computer savvy. I won't bother to check out the support, the software functionality is not worth it. Get MasterCook instead.

Fatal error day 2
After spending a couple hours entering my own recipes, I received a fatal error and have not been able to open the program again. I don't plan to continue using this software and I wouldn't recommend it.

Not what it's cooked up to be
I found this software very user unfriendly, difficult to naviagate and very time-consuming to attempt to utilize. The window for recipe addition is easy to use but that is the only thing easy to use. There are better choices out there. ... Read more

Features

• Outliner, organizer, and free-form database program for OS X users
• Clip, organize, and share unstructured notes and ideas
• Easy-to-understand notebook interface
• Note-taking; annotation; clipping; searching; importing
• HTML publishing; publish to the Web in one step

Features

• Over 5000 delicious Betty Crocker recipes, with hundreds of full-color photos
• Easy-to-use interface for browsing recipes and photos
• How-to instructional cooking video clips
• Search recipes by ingredients or keywords
• Add your own recipes (no limit)

Features

• Historic charts to monitor your progress.
• Compreshensive database of net carbs, including Atkins-approved foods and fast-food items.
• Carb Counter with Alarm functionality allows you to customize and tally your daily and weekly carb intake.
• Journal for tracking your weight-loss progress.
• Step-by-step Atkins Lifestyle Guide designed to help you follow the Aktins Nutritional Approach for Life

Features

• Palm OS 3 or later, Pocket PC 2002 or later, a Windows or Macintosh desktop (to load software)

Reviews (4)

Not user friendly
This software has a very cumbersome user interface - it's hard to navigate, searches are cumbersome, and the window is small and can't be resized. I once stumbled across an entry about homemade mayonnaise, but have been unable to find it since, because it's so difficult to navigate.

If you're willing to put up with the cumbersome software, you'll find useful information in here, and probably good recipes too - but I'd choose the book any day.

DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE!
This software is mislabeled and does not run on a modern computer. The only way you can get it to run is to cripple your computer by turning down virtual memory to a level that will cause other applications like Microsoft Office to crash!
I bought this and was told by the store that they don't accept returns on opened software (which is somewhat reasonable since people would just make copies and return the software).
Don't get ...like me!

Recipes are great, Cook book software lacking
I was looking for cook book software to enter all of my recipes into. I read all the reviews on all the different packages and non of them sounded perfect, one would crash due to errors, another was sold to another company and was only being supported so I decided to order the Joy of Cooking software and try it since there were no reviews and it wasn't too expensive. The recipes are great and modern so I will keep the CD for that but I will not waste my time entering my own recipes. Entering the recipes is like typing them on a recipe card, there is no nutritional analysis and I couldn't find a way to print my own book. If you are hoping this will allow you to organize your own recipes, don't buy it. If you want good recipes on your computer and not have to look up a book, I recommend it.

Essentially the print cookbook on CD
"Joy of Cooking" is one of the best-known cookbooks ever published, and for good reason. Like the print version, this CD offers some terrific recipes and excellent cooking advice. Unfortunately, the similarities ultimately extend too far. There's simply not enough new material here to warrant a hearty recommendation, particularly to those who already own a copy of "Joy."

A particular source of disappointment is the software's failure to tap the strengths of the form. For example, the box promises "100 illustrated, step-by-step techniques every cook should know." But these techniques rely far too heavily on written descriptions, wasting a perfect opportunity for helpful video files.

More irritatingly, many of the recipes do not even include pictures of the finished dishes. This is a genuine disappointment.

Overall, this product is fine for those who are looking for a searchable copy of "Joy of Cooking." And there a few other features some will find helpful. But don't expect many extras. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

This is a great DOS application
This is the worst software I've seen. The interface looks like a DOS application. I'm sure it would have been a killer app 15 years ago but by today's standards it is very weak.

There are a lot of recipes to be sure but I can't even recommend the content. When you consider there are other programs out there that have tons of food photos to go with the recipes, video clips, nutritional information, etc. a text-based database of recipes just doesn't compare...even if it is very large.

I browsed the Casserole category and found 40 some odd thousand casserole recipes which is great (in an overwhelming way)...but the only way to navigate through them all was to click Next and Previous! I guess I could see the 40 thousandth one some time next week if all I did between now and then was click the Next button 40,000 times.

I typed in some food names and searched by ingredient with similar results. Thousands of matches found...Next and Previous buttons to browse them all. ???

The software does not adjust serving sizes, plan menus, analyze nutritional value, e-mail recipes, etc.

I guess I might recommend this to someone who was looking for a long lost recipe...but you can search for that for free right now using a thing called "the Internet." I can't see why anyone would recommend this software.

But...that's just my opinion. I've tried some of the others like MasterCook and Cook'n. I prefer Cook'n but I'd recommend anything other than this.

I think I bought'em all
I went nuts and bought a dozen pieces of kitchen software after putting a computer in my kitchen (luv it ...most popular computer in the house). This software does this....you look up say ah...chicken salad...and instead of getting one recipe back ...you get maybe 40 or more. It's great to read through the various ingredients and decide which recipe you think you'd like best. I believe it's fair to say there is nothing else like it and at this price buy several and give them away. Your computer savy friends will luv u 4 it!

Awesome!!!
The best software for cooking I've seen thus far. I absolutely love it!!!!!

One great cookbook!
I have owned several versions of this cookbook and all that I can say is it is one great cookbook! The publishers have added the one final ingredient that makes it above all others. It now has an add recipe feature! If you are a cook like me you already have several great recipes. This cookbook lets you add them to the list. I use this on a daily basis and cannot say enough about it. It has a wealth of meat & potatoes recipes! Also gives you the ability of telling it what ingredients you have in your cupboard and it will give you a list of possible meals to make!

Recipes, recipes, and more recipes
If you are looking to possess nothing but recipes this is the program for you. However, if nutritional information is a must for you, you should know that this has only a table which lists nutritional information for individual ingredients; not for entire recipes. This is not a difficult program to navigate, which is good because there is no written manual or instructions. ... Read more

Features

• Draw from a library of over 5,000 different recipes -- or add your own favorites
• Ready-made grocery lists you can download to your PDA or print out, for easy shopping
• Accommodate special diet or health conditions by searching for recipes with low fat, no dairy, no sugar and more
• Get professional tips and techniques from culinary textbooks -- sure to improve the skills of a beginner or an expert
• Make party planning easy -- prepare meals for 5 or 50 guests and browse an assortment of party ideas

Reviews (6)

I have concerns with this company & this product
This is essentially the review I posted for their sister-product, MasterCook Deluxe Low Carb. I've spent 3 days researching the heck out of cooking software, and maybe I can save you some effort ... or at least give some food for thought. I want to upgrade from my 3.5" disk of MasterCook II (2.7) version from 1993.

Sierra sold the MasterCook line to ValuSoftware a few years ago, a company with questionable practices based on all the internet research I've observed recently. A lot of what I've read indicates that if you decide to go with MasterCook, you're better off springing for the two bills more and getting MasterCook Deluxe, not the LowCarb version of it. Deluxe has everything that LowCarb has (except 11 recipes that are only in LowCarb), plus thousands of regular recipes, should you ever need one. You can filter Deluxe to return just the Low Carb recipes results. It appears the LowCarb product was a fast remarketing ploy by ValuSoft to make some quick bucks on current trends, without hardly doing anything but filtering existing software.

I've also read on the internet that ValuSoft tends to buy up software, sell it cheap, sell it only until the sales decline, then abandons the product. It doesn't sound like much is ever done for future enhancements. Not good, if it's true.

Of significant note for me as a low carber of over 5 years, before it got trendy, is that the MasterCook line doesn't break out sugars from the carb nutritional analysis reporting.

I'm strongly considering "Living Cookbook" instead, a much newer program, but with some really active development going on, and easy communication with the actual software developer. There's an online demo I checked out, a free 25-use trial, and continual updates for no extra fee (even entire whole number version updates). It reports carbs, net carbs (and sugar, sugar alcohol and fiber). It looks pretty attractive to me. (I don't think it can be any riskie than going with ValuSoft's MasterCook program at this point.)

Alternatively, there's another line you might look at ... Cook'n, which offers a low carb version that's probably better than what MasterCook has to offer as far as the recipes offered anyway.

MasterCook has a huge following, but I don't know that it can be sustained now that it's under the control of ValuSoft ... or if it will be around for long. I'd be ... CAUTIOUS, if you intend to invest a lot of time into cooking software data entry.

If you want to print custom paper
If you want to print custom paper (like 3x5 or 4x6 index cards), be aware that this software may not work with your printer and tech support absolutely refuses to answer anything that has printer in the email.

I had V5.0 working fine and updated to V7.0. My custom 4x6 cards now print off the page with increasing indents. I had to write a helper program which takes an exported recipe and formats it into Microsoft Word in order to print.

Out to make a buck...
I guess you could say I'm a cooking software aficionado. I've been watching this industry for many years. I've seen products come and go.

MasterCook is a pretty good product but since Sierra sold it to ValuSoft a couple years ago, my confidence in it has declined significantly.

ValuSoft is just out to make a buck. The only technical support they offer is via e-mail. They are milking the brand for all it's worth and when they can't get anything else out of it, they will discard it like they have done with all their other old titles.

It's not that they're a bad company, that's just their business model. They buy old products that have some value, they repackage them so they look "new and improved" and sell them at deep discounts until they don't sell anymore. They're not truly committed to the cooking software category.

"As long as the software works well, what does it matter?" is probably what you're thinking right now, right? That's what many people thought before Windows XP came out. But they were very sad to find that their MasterCook software did not work on Windows XP. After spending hours and hours entering their own recipes they suddenly found that they were unable to run the MasterCook program on their new Windows XP computers.

Over a year later, Sierra fixed the compatibility problem in order to sell the product to ValuSoft but what happens when the next Operating System comes out?

Before you spend a lot of time entering in your own recipes into MasterCook, I highly recommend that you take a look at some of the other options out there.

In my opinion, the Cook'n Software by DVO is the best. The interface is a bit dated but the company is totally committed to cooking software. They are constantly enhancing the software and they post updates regularly and let you download them for free.

There are some other good products on the Internet as well like the Living Cookbook but they're not as secure as DVO. They're relatively new and still have yet to prove themselves.

That's my opinion...for what it's worth. I hope this helps somebody. It's probably more than you ever wanted to know...but when you consider the amount of time it takes to key in all those recipes, I figure it's better to get the scoop up front rather than find out after the fact.

Whatever you decide to do, organizing your recipes on the computer is FAR better than any other paper method. If you've never tried an electronic cookbook before, you're going to LOVE IT!

PDA Shopping not possible
I upgraded to this program so that I could use the PDA download for my shopping, but there's a glitch in the program that doesn't transfer fractions correctly. (I have contacted the manufacturer, and they confirmed that this is a known bug, and there is currently no fix for it.) So don't waste your money if you're thinking this is a great idea.

MasterChef for MACS
Why is this software not available for Macintosh? It is a great program, but I have recently switched to an Apple IMAC and am unable to use your software. Will Sierra be making the software available for Macs? I hope so, as I have loved using this program on my old pc. ... Read more

Amazon.com Product Description

Cook'n Fix & Forget delivers recipes for delicious, no-fuss meals right to your desktop. Tight budgets and even tighter schedules make cooking a constant challenge. With Cook'n Fix & Forget, you prepare meals virtually hands-free--in a crockpot. It's a great way to maximize your use of affordable ingredients and produce a tender, timely, hearty dish. This handy CD-ROM offers 369 recipes that can be prepared the night before your meal or early in the day. Just forget about it: the food cooks while you're at work or out and about. Hours later, you come home to a great-smelling house and an even better home-cooked meal! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great product
I love crockpot recipes...so finding this CD was like striking gold! The recipes are fantastic! There were not very many photos. That was kind of disappointing, but over-all, I'd give it an A+. For ..., this was a steal of a deal. I was even more pleased with the features of the software. I can add my own recipes, e-mail them to friends, download them to my Palm Pilot, print them on 3x5 cards and more. I give it very high marks. ... Read more

Features

• Beauty Studio - Use your digital image or one of the provided models to test new cosmetics and hair styles
• Personal Beauty Profile - After a quick interactive questionnaire, Changes TM will determine your natural colorings and features which will enable you to make informed hair and make-up color choices
• Tutorials - Extensive video-based lessons show you how to use your beauty tools to shape, contour, and style like a professional

Features

• Calendar Software
• Enter your due date and watch your pregnancy develop.
• Nine months of helpful information and pictures of your growing fetus.
• Easy to use, updates automatically.
• Get a window on your pregnancy.

Reviews (3)

For expectant mothers, fathers, and siblings
I wish ExpectantSee had been available when I was pregnant with my first child. What a great way to "see" what is happening from day to day-- not only for expectant mothers, but for expectant fathers and siblings as well!

It's Better than Going On-Line
This screen saver is really great. It's similiar to those pregnancy calendars that you see on-line, but without all the hassle and advertisements. ExpectantSee really made my pregnancy more enjoyable because I could just SEE my baby...as if she were really on the screen. It provides helpful information, too, so I've given it as a gift to all of my expecting friends. We all love it!

A Unique Gift for Moms-to-Be
ExpectantSee is the perfect gift for any expectant mother and family. It allows the viewers to literally "see" the growth and develpment of their baby in utero from conception to birth on a day-by-day basis and provides important information about this miraculous process. Whereas many popular pregnancy books have provided this type of information in print, it has never before been available in the form of a dynamic screensaver, personalized in conjunction with the baby's approaching due date. ... Read more

Features

• Import, organize and manage all of your recipes in one place
• Includes over 700 recipes
• Import from MasterCook, A Cooks Book and more
• Advanced search lets you sift through thousands of recipes with ease
• Comes with 300 terrific recipes that users can take full advantage of, for a new mealtime experience