Tag Archives: iPad

I get to do some pretty cool things being a blogger, and most of them are totally random. I’ve tested recipes, sampled peanuts, attended luncheons, and sampled all manner of new apps. Admittedly, I’m not at Supreme Food Blogger status quite yet (yes, that’s a thing, and yes, I made it up) so the products I’m offered are occasionally strange and sometimes not great. Okay… most times not great.

So when the folks from the Cooking Planit app approached me, I expected more of the same.

I was dead wrong.

The app was clearly designed by people who actually cook in their kitchens. It’s basically an app full of recipes but with ease and efficiency at the root of it. Below I break down my favorite features:

1. Ingredients list: How annoying is it to hand copy your grocery list from a cookbook or website? And I inevitably forget something. Or the recipe calls for a LARGE onion but I wrote down “onion” and I get home and realize I have to go back out because my onion is tiny. Cooking Planit lets you download a grocery list right to your phone. You’re like YAWN I also need Rice Krispies, shampoo, and Oreos. You can edit the grocery list within the app, too! So smart, right?

2. Voice prompts: This has to be my favorite feature. I think the iPad might be the greatest thing to happen to cooking in the past 10 years, but I’m always super aware of getting it dirty. To remedy this? Cooking Planit devised a way to just say, “NEXT” and you’re on to the next step in the recipe. No swiping necessary.

3. Timing: The app tells you EXACTLY how long everything takes. It’s a pet peeve of mine when a recipe purports to take 30 minutes to cook but a step within the recipe is “cook until liquid is reduced by half.” Um… cookbook writers? This occasionally takes FOREVERRRR. Cut to me serving dinner at 9:46PM. The Cooking Planit app has an actual clock and timer that updates as you go. And if you’re going to fast? They’ll send up an alert to let you know the dish might not come out as planned if you continue to rush through it.

In short, this app is awesome. You can test it out for free and buy it for a super low price to gain access to all the recipes (which is ridiculously extensive). Go to CookingPlanit.com for more information.