It’s so easy to find recipes on line. A sunny afternoon, a little web browsing through food porn, the discovery of a new recipe, comparing it to others, hummming and hawing (do I have the ingredients in the house? how complicated is this one? maybe this one instead. yes- definitely this one).

The trick, I have discovered, is finding the one you’ve decided on later. Especially a few months later, when you’re eager to make it again, and spend more time trying to locate the darned thing than it takes to make the dish. Is this the one? you mutter No, I’m sure it didn’t have jalapenos… a few more clicks  Was it this one?…  

A lot of sites provide their own “recipe boxes”. That narrows it down somewhat. But I often can’t remember which site’s recipe box I was using. Was it Fine Cooking? Williams Sonoma? Bon Appetit? 

Then I learned about the Paprika App. A few months ago, Susan at Between Naps on the Porch asked her readers how they organized their recipes, and people made all kinds of suggestions. I duly investigated the responses, as my frustration level with my current non-system was at its peak. 

Paprika is not free, but in my view, it’s worth every penny of its $4.99 pricetag. You can download recipes from a wide variety of sites, and it keeps them all in one place, in a consistent format. The Compass icon. second down on the left column, takes you to the browser. You can search using Google, or through one of the Recommended Sites. Once you’ve located the recipe, just click the Download button in the bottom right hand corner and you’re in business.

I happily went to town, tracking down recipes from my favourite sites and soon I had a nice collection, which you can find by clicking the File Box icon, the first one in the column on the left. You can assign the recipes to categories of your choosing, too.

As it’s summer, I indulged heavily in online salads, and soon had a wonderful selection of salads from which to choose. Don’t you love the lively pictures?

Click on the first picture for Autumn Panzanella Salad and here’s what comes up. All the recipes are presented in a consistent format with the ingredients listed on the left and the method on the right. I really like the next feature: adding ingredients from the recipe to a grocery list. See the little grocery basket with the plus sign in the red header? Just click on that and…

You can then decide which ingredients you need. It selects all the items from the recipe automatically –  I already have olive oil in my pantry, so it didn’t even offer to add that ingredient. You can unclick on anything you already have, or have decided to omit. Then click Add.

If you want to plan some meals for the upcoming week, you can add recipes to specific days using the calendar function, which is the fifth icon down on the left hand side.

Now on to some of the quirks I’ve discovered, which I hope will save you some time if you decide to try out Paprika.

TIP #1: Assigning the categories is a bit confusing at first. When you download a recipe, you can assign the category afterwards by going to the Uncategorized section, or you can do it during the download. I prefer to do things once, if possible, so clicked on the category button and happily assigned the category. 

Then I tried to save the recipe. There is no option to do that in this screen. Weird! You have to hit the BACK button and THEN save. 

TIP #2 – Famly Sharing. If you’re using an online app to compile your grocery list, it’s not something you want to keep to yourself. In our house, I do the vast majority of the meal planning and cooking; Glenn is the grocery guy. He happily shcleps to the store and dutifully purchases whatever is on the list. Online lists have terrific advantages. The list is wherever your phone or tablet is – not back on the fridge where someone has scribbled on it. You can update the list even after the purchaser has left the house. 🙂 Glenn often jokes that he sees the list growing as he’s in the store, as I remember things to add. 

For years we’ve used Grocery Gadget, but it’s not without its issues, and it’s not linked to the recipes like Paprika is. I began to research how we could share Paprika’s list.

It seemed simple enough on the surface. We are an Apple family and Paprika is set up for Family Sharing. I added Glenn to a family list on iTunes. So far, so good. Glenn should be able to use the apps I’ve purchased at no extra cost. But when we tried to download the App on his phone, it kept saying it was $4.99. My fear was if I bought a separate version they’d never talk to each other and this whole thing would be for nothing. Finally, in frustration, I just decided to buy the damned thing, and figured I would sign him in to the App using my login. So I clicked BUY. And it came up “A family member has already purchased this App”. No charge.  Really? So that’s the trick – go to buy it and then it tells you it’s free. Right.

Use the same login for all the devices and it shares beautifully. All your recipes in one place, a meal planner and an online grocery list. Works for me! 

Has anyone else had experience with Paprika? And if so, do you like it? Any tips to share?

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

I’m sharing this post with Between Naps on the Porch.