Nope, this isn’t a recipe.  I know you’re due one.  Life is a little nuts here and we’re leaving town to finish dismantling my grandmother’s house at the end of this week, after which things should return to normal.  Or as normal as they ever are here.  But today’s my birthday and I just got THE COOLEST GIFT from my critique partner.  It’s called Living Cookbook and it’s a recipe management software for Windows (sorry Mac folks).  OMG, people!  THE NUTRITION INFORMATION IS CALCULATED AUTOMATICALLY!!!!  Do you have any idea how much time I spend doing that on these recipes when I write them?  And how hard it is for these million ingredient, gluten-free baking recipes in particular?  Because they’ve said it much more clearly than my rhapsodizing might, I’m shamelessly swiping the feature info from their website.  This is just so flipping cool, I can’t even…

Working with recipes

• Enter recipes with as much or as little detail as you like.
• Add images to recipes. In fact you can add multiple recipe images, a source image and an image for every recipe procedure step, if you want to.
• Scan images directly from your flatbed scanner or digital camera.
• Copy recipes from the Internet.
• Calculate recipe nutrition from the recipe ingredients or enter the nutrition data manually.
• Calculate recipe costs.
• Share recipes with others, even if they don’t own Living Cookbook. You can export or e-mail recipes in all of the major recipe file formats.
• Import recipes from MasterCook, Big Oven, Cook’n, Meal-Master and other recipe management programs.
• Add ratings and reviews to recipes.
• Add audio or video files to recipes.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to recipes.
• Assign recipe types and categories.
• Enter the recipe’s oven temperature in either Celsius or Fahrenheit.
• Choose from five degrees of difficulty.
• Use a recipe as an ingredient in another recipe.
• Enter preparation time, cooking time, inactive time and total time.
• Organize recipes into cookbooks, chapters, sub-chapters, etc. according to your needs.
• Customize recipe displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Add any number of tips to a recipe to record recipe variations, serving suggestions, wine pairings, etc.
• Enter author, source, web page, copyright and author notes for any recipe.
• Print your recipes on any paper format: US letter, legal, A4, 4×6 index card, 3×5 index card and more.
• Scale recipes to any number of servings.
• Convert recipe units to and from Imperial or metric units.
• Eliminate duplicate recipes automatically.
• Compare any two recipes side-by-side.
• Enter custom recipe data (i.e. user-defined recipe attributes). Living Cookbook 2011 lets you customize 5 text columns, 5 numeric columns and 5 link (URL or e-mail) columns.

Publishing

• Publish your cookbooks with tables of contents and indexes.
• Print your publication from within Living Cookbook or export it as a Microsoft Word document.
• Format your publication using your choice of fonts, colors, spacing and layouts.

Working with ingredients

• Choose from over 8000 ingredients with nutrition data provided by the USDA.
• Enter your own custom ingredients or copy them from the Internet.
• Import new USDA nutrition as it is made available by the USDA. Living Cookbook 2011 ship with version SR-22 (the most current version of the nutrient database).
• Add ingredient images and source images.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to ingredients.
• Add any number of custom measures (units) for each ingredient.
• Assign costs, grocery aisles and preferred stores to ingredients.
• Enter ingredient nodes to describe the ingredient, record uses and preparation information, etc.
• Share ingredients with other Living Cookbook users.
• Organize ingredients into folders and sub-folders.
• Customize ingredient displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Eliminate duplicate ingredients automatically.
• Compare any two ingredients side-by-side.
• Copy ingredients from the Internet.
• Enter custom ingredient data (i.e. user-defined recipe attributes). Living Cookbook 2011 lets you customize 5 text columns, 5 numeric columns and 5 link (URL or e-mail) columns.

Working with menus

• Create your own menus using any combination of recipes, ingredient, headings and text.
• Add menu images and source images.
• Calculate menu nutrition from the menu items or enter the nutrition data manually.
• Calculate menu costs.
• Share menus with other Living Cookbook users.
• Add audio or video files to menus.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to menus.
• Assign menu types and categories.
• Organize menus into folders and sub-folders.
• Customize menu displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Add any number of tips to a menu to record menu variations, serving suggestions, wine pairings, etc.
• Enter author, source, web page, copyright and author notes for any menu.
• Scale menus to any number of servings.
• Eliminate duplicate menus automatically.
• Compare any two menus side-by-side.
• Enter custom menu data (i.e. user-defined recipe attributes). Living Cookbook 2011 lets you customize 5 text columns, 5 numeric columns and 5 link (URL or e-mail) columns.

Working with meals

• Add recipes, ingredients, menus, headings and text to meals.
• Choose from nine different meals each day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, snacks, nightcap, etc.)
• Add meal headings to organize meals into courses (e.g. Appetizer, Main Course, Dessert, etc.)
• Use drag and drop or copy and paste to add ingredient, recipes or menus to a meal.
• Use drag and drop or copy and paste to move or copy a range of days, a single day, a meal or individual meal items.
• Calculate nutrition for meals, days or a user-defined range of days.
• Calculate meal and day costs.
• Share meal data with other Living Cookbook users.
• Customize calendar displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• View nutrition and cost summary information for a day or a range of dates.
• View meal calendar in month, week or day mode.

Working with grocery lists

• Add recipe, ingredients, menus or meals grocery lists or enter the grocery list items manually.
• Create a grocery list for multiple stores.
• Calculate grocery list costs and subtotal by store.
• Automatically organize the grocery list by aisles.
• Customize grocery aisles by store, including grocery aisle order.
• Customize grocery list displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Share grocery lists with other Living Cookbook users.
• Create a grocery list to restock inventory.
• Create a grocery list for a range of meal plan dates.
• Automatically combine like grocery list items (e.g. “1 cup milk” and “1 pint milk” will be combined automatically to read “1 1/2 pints milk”.
• Compare any two grocery lists side-by-side.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to grocery lists.

Working with inventory

• Manage your kitchen inventory.
• Control the ordering properties of any inventory item (minimum order quantity, order at level, order up to level, etc.).
• Share inventory data with other Living Cookbook users.
• Customize inventory displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Create a printable inventory worksheet to help you take stock of your kitchen.
• Compare any two inventory items side-by-side.

Working with glossary items

• Enter your own glossary items or copy them from the Internet.
• Add glossary item images and source images.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to glossary items.
• Share glossary data with other Living Cookbook users.
• Customize glossary displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Eliminate duplicate glossary items automatically.
• Compare any two glossary items side-by-side.

Working with techniques

• Enter your own techniques or copy them from the Internet.
• Add an image to each technique step.
• Add audio or video files to techniques.
• Add file attachments (any file type) to techniques.
• Share techniques with other Living Cookbook users.
• Customize technique displays using your choice of fonts, background colors, headings and more.
• Eliminate duplicate techniques automatically.
• Compare any two techniques side-by-side.

Working with the Internet

• Browse the Internet with Living Cookbook’s built-in web browser.
• Save references to web pages you like in Living Cookbook’s database.
• Share saved web pages with other Living Cookbook users.

Working with RSS feeds

• View RSS feeds with Living Cookbook’s built-in RSS feed aggregator.
• Save RSS feeds in Living Cookbook’s database.
• Share RSS feeds with other Living Cookbook users.

Other features

• Backup your Living Cookbook database.
• Configure Living Cookbook to backup your database every time you close the application or Living Cookbook can prompt you to backup periodically (you choose how often).
• Verify the integrity of a backup file before restoring it.
• Restore Living Cookbook backup files from any version of Living Cookbook.
• Compact the Living Cookbook database to shrink it to its smallest possible size.
• Search, filter and saved searches
• Choose from basic or advanced search modes to find the recipes, ingredients, meals and other data you need.
• Save advanced searches in your database for future use.
• Drag one or more saved searches onto Living Cookbook’s filter bar to filter all search results.
• Use Living Cookbook’s search and replace feature to replace text anywhere in the database.
• Use copy and paste to duplicate recipes, ingredients, meals, and more.
• Use drag and drop to move or copy recipe, ingredients, meals, etc.
• Use Living Cookbook’s undo and redo to undo almost any action.
• Browse Living Cookbook’s comprehensive help file with more than 480 indexed and searchable help topics.
• Use Living Cookbook’s unique Kitchen Calculator tool to convert between units.
• Flag recipes, ingredient, etc. using one of six color flags.
• New users can use Living Cookbook’s Launchpad feature to help them see all of the actions that can be performed on the selected item.
• Check the spelling of recipes, ingredient, meals, glossary items and techniques. Choose either standard or as-you-type (wavy red line under misspelled words) spell-checking.
• Use the Back and Forward toolbar buttons to back and forth to recently viewed items.
• Use Living Cookbook’s built-in database repair tools to fix any potential database problems.
• Copy and paste or drag and drop recipes to other applications that accept plain text from the Windows clipboard (e.g. drag a a recipe to an e-mail).
• Open multiple recipe workspaces at the same time.
• Create links to your favorite or most-viewed recipes, ingredients and other data.
• Customize and print any list (e.g. recipe lists, ingredient lists, etc.).
• Print multiple recipes, ingredient, etc. at once.
• Export to any list to Excel.