Mastercook 9

[PurrPg]

I took the plunge. I received a nice cash gift from boss and went and bought Mastercook 9. Does anyone want to give any opinions on favorite cookbooks in there? I hope I just don't let it sit and put it to good use.

[Cookin4Love]

I got it right before Christmas. My two favorite cookbooks are "Family Favorites" and "CLBB Recipes," which I created in an old Mastercook and imported into the new version. I haven't even looked at the other cookbooks. Hopefully, someone else on here has, because I'd like to know myself. Some of hte titles look good!

[Terri_A]

That's funny - I've never looked in the other cookbooks either. In fact, it's never even crossed my mind!!! Pretty shocking since I'm a cookbook junkie! Hmmmm....now I'm at least thinking about looking at them!

[sharhamm]

Same here...never looked at the other cookbooks. BUT I do have 5 cookbooks of my own of recipes to try! Importing recipes from the web is so easy!!!

[PurrPg]

Okay, I'll try importing all my favorite CLBB recipes. I'm pretty computer illiterate, but sounds easy. I'm making the Spanish Potatoes and Oregon Hazelnut Bleu Cheese Salad with my pork loin roast for 8 tonight. I'm also doing RR's Cocktails for 8 @ 6. I still have to find another veggie to serve.

[Dfen911]

I haven't looked at the other cookbooks much, but I do search for something that sounds good so that's how I find recipes. I'll put in a search that includes the main ingredients I have and see what it comes up with.

I have my own cookbook in there of my favorites and a new one called Try it in 2006. These are the recipes I want to try this year that I found here, other websites etc.

[ttubbs]

I took a couple of culinary classes at the local college; the first class used the text �Professional Cooking�, a great book. The college switched curriculum to �On Cooking� for the next class. IMO, On Cooking is not as good as Professional Cooking, but still a nice book. I have the hardback, so usually read from that, but it�s nice to have it in MC for doing searches. The companion On Baking is also included with MC, so I see those two as a very nice bonus. (FWIW, there�s also a Professional Baking book to go with the other curriculum.)

What is even better than having the recipes from these books in MC, is that most of the text for these books comes with MC too. (I think, depending on how you install it, these may or may not be copied from the CD to your hard drive.)

As I prefer reference books to just collection of recipe books, I think the Culinary Fundamentals book sound promising, but haven�t really looked into it much yet. My current food focus is on getting better with making bread. I�ve read the baking 101 stuff from my Bernard Clayton, King Arthur, & Professional Cooking books, and plan to read the chapters in On Cooking tonight. I have all those in actual book form. I plan to read the On Baking electronic MC one after that, and will probably make a basic loaf this weekend.

So, in a shorter version, I think the Premium and Cooking Fundamentals collections hold promise, but just see the others as recipe collections that may turn up something via a search.

[tea4one]

I took a couple of culinary classes at the local college; the first class used the text �Professional Cooking�, a great book. The college switched curriculum to �On Cooking� for the next class. IMO, On Cooking is not as good as Professional Cooking, but still a nice book. I have the hardback, so usually read from that, but it�s nice to have it in MC for doing searches. The companion On Baking is also included with MC, so I see those two as a very nice bonus. (FWIW, there�s also a Professional Baking book to go with the other curriculum.)

I have Wayne Grisslen's professional baking the 3rd edition, I would like the one from a couple of years ago. I do not, however have his professional cooking yet but hear good things about it. I also have the On cooking book and like it, would really like to get the baking one. I also have CIA's The Professional Chef, 7th edition. I like all of these books and know i will never be that good but still like looking through them when I need an answer to a question.

[ttubbs]

After rereading my post, I�m wondering if I was clear at all. Only the On Cooking and On Baking come with MC. I don�t have access to it right now, but I think ALL of On Baking is on the CD, but only select chapters from On Cooking. The Professional Cooking and Professional Baking books DO NOT come with MC. (So, for $20 you could get a nice recipe management as well as On Baking. )

My Professional Cooking book came with a trial of some software called ChefTech with all of it�s recipes on. I�m working on finding a way to convert from ChefTech to MC so I can include that cookbook in the MC search features too.

I should have added before that I also mostly use my own cookbook creations. I�ve quite a lot of CL recipes in MC, and I put together a Family Cookbook a couple years ago. My nephew likes to visit in the summer and cook with me, so I�ve started a cookbook of just ideas for him. I�ve also got a couple �special interest� collection cookbooks I�ve created, like �Christmas Cookies� that I include recipes as well as tips, hints, and tricks I pick up here and various sources.

[Gail K.]

I still have an older version of MC; however, I have many wonderful cookbooks on it in addition to the ones that I set up via the bulletin boards and other web sites.
These cookbook gems have come courtesy of Mad's Recipes . His web site has hundreds of recipes from Bon Appetit, Giada, Rachael Ray, Alton Brown, etc. plus many, many more. You just click on the recipe file of your choice and one hundred recipes at a time download directly to your MC cookbook in seconds.