BigOven Tips

How to subscribe to Message Board Forums or Threads

stevemur — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:10:24 GMT

The new Message Board upgrade allows you to subscribe to any forums, and be alerted via email whenever a new message is posted. For instance, you might find it helpful to subscribe to the "Announcements" forum, to be alerted when new systems upgrades are available. Or perhaps you're a food photographer, and want to subscribe to that forum.

To get forum posts by email, simply visit the forum you're interested in (when logged into the message board), and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There, you'll see "More Options", and you can choose to have the Message Board send you an email whenever a new topic is posted.

Be sure to check for updates!

stevemur — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:19:53 GMT

Did you know that updates are free for all users between major releases (i.e., 1.x)? Do a quick "Help/Check for Updates" to see if you've got the latest version of BigOven.

Looking for what's new? See our changelog.

Get Recipes from Famous Chefs & TV Personalities

stevemur — Mon, 08 May 2006 04:29:02 GMT

Are you a recipe-collecting-fanatic? Do you have favorite chefs you like? Looking to build up your own collection?

There are lots of places to get pre-formatted recipes -- newsgroups, Google searches for "MMF" or "MXP" recipes.

One resource you might want to check out in particular is the Mad's Recipes site, not affiliated with BigOven or Lakefront Software Inc. in any way, but one which offers dozens and dozens of recipe files in .MX2 format, which BigOven can read. (You'll need the Deluxe Edition.)

Simply download the file(s) you want, extract them to any location on your PC (e.g., the Desktop will do just fine), then launch BigOven, and choose "File/Import/from MX2". Point to the file, and bingo! Bob's your uncle. On that site, you'll find recipes by cuisine, recipes from famous TV personalities and more.

[NOTE: Again, Mad's Recipes is in no way associated with BigOven or Lakefront Software; we just think it might be worth checking out by some of you.]

Use BigOven to Find Holiday Meals

stevemur — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:42:25 GMT

The quickest way to use the site to find Holiday meals is to visit our Browse page (www.bigoven.com then click "Find Recipes" and choose "Browse" from the menu). Then, look at the "Season/Occasion" section, and choose the holiday. Plan your Easter in advance!

From within the PC software, simply click "Find" on the toolbar, then "More Options", and add the name of the holiday to the "Tags" list. Add any additional criteria (e.g., Main Dish, Dessert, etc.) and press "OK"!

Use BigOven to Reproduce that Restaurant Dish!

stevemur — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:44:16 GMT

Remember that delicious favorite dish you had at that restaurant that night? Yeah, that's the one.

Want to try to make it at home?

You can use the new BigOven.com search to help find it again. Or at least a recipe pretty close to it, so you can jump off from there and fine tune. All you need is a few keywords -- like ingredients, tags (e.g., spicy, dressing, dessert, etc.), and more.

For instance, there was a Japanese restaurant that I liked to visit with my family, and it had a terrific salad dressing. I don't know exactly what was in it, but I could certainly taste that it had orange juice and soy sauce, and probably ginger in it.

So I head to BigOven.com search and type "orange juice salad soy sauce". Lo and behold, there in the list is http://www.bigoven.com/recipe134512 is there waiting for me to try. Boom. 2 minutes of work and I'm rediscovering an old friend.

Edit your BigOven.com profile -- add a photo!

stevemur — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:00:16 GMT

Have you ever wondered about how people get a photo next to their posts on the BigOven.com recipe archive? Simply stop by the "My Settings" area on the main bigoven.com site menu, and you can edit your profile. You can keep your email and city location private if you so choose. Take a minute to introduce yourself!

You aren't limited in the shopping list to known ingredients!

stevemur — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 08:10:24 GMT

We occasionally get an email inquiry on this topic, so we thought we'd post this as a tip:

You aren't limited to the pre-defined "BigOven Ingredients" in the shopping list. You can add any arbitrary item to your shopping list -- even items that aren't "groceries" at all!

BigOven will try to help you out by completing the ingredient name, but if you want to add any arbitrary item to your shopping list (e.g., gift wrap paper, scotch tape, scissors, glue, toothpaste... whatever!), simply keep typing, and press "Add".

You can then edit the department (aisle) it goes in by clicking in the appropriate column in the shopping list.

Tools/Options/Ingredients will also allow you to edit the list of available ingredients that BigOven knows about; this is where the "QuickFill" list comes from.

Import from MicroCookbook

stevemur — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 23:38:23 GMT

BigOven does not read MicroCookbook files natively, but it can read the "MealMaster (MM)" format that it outputs. Simply output your recipes to MealMaster format, change the file extension to .MMF (not just .MM), and import into BigOven from the File menu.

Make frequent use of ctrl-w for easier display

stevemur — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 04:36:36 GMT

Is the web viewer too tiny for you? Did you know you can quickly widen or contract the web view by pressing ctrl-w?

We've noticed a major difference between advanced users and beginning BigOven users -- the advanced users make heavy use of ctrl-w to show more of the web or recipe view... then toggle it back to normal split-view when needed. Get to know ctrl-w!

Add BigOven Recent Raves to My Yahoo!, My MSN, or RSS Reader!

stevemur — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 21:49:46 GMT

You can the "BigOven Recent Raves" recipes in your RSS readeror on your favorite portal home page! It's free.

There are lots of RSS feeds to choose from.

Recent Recipe Raves (4 and 5 Star Reviews)

Recent Photos
Favorites/Photos/Ratings/Postings from your Favorite Chefs

To add the Recent Raves to your home page, simply click the button below:

Recent Raves:

If you use My MSN as your home page, you can add the same channel here:

Recent Raves:

If you use an RSS reader, simply add it here:

Recent Raves:

For more information on RSS (Really Simple Syndication), or to request a new feed, visit our RSS page.

"Getting Started" User Guide Now Available for Free Download

stevemur — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 00:05:04 GMT

We've just written a "Getting Started" guide geared toward first-time users. It's 22 pages, and it provides an overview of the most basic features in BigOven for Windows.

You can download it (.PDF format) here. (467kb)

Tip for Advanced Users -- How to Network BigOven

stevemur — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 19:51:31 GMT

Did you know that multiple computers in your household can share meal plans, shopping lists and recipe boxes if you have them on the same network?

Read this PDF document on how to do it:

http://www.bigoven.com/docs/technote-netshare.pdf

Collection of Tips for First-Time Users

stevemur — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:15:49 GMT

What's BigOven all about? In a nutshell, BigOven for Windows lets you do lots of things with recipes, like:

Find virtually any recipe
Create meal plans
Share your best recipes with others, even get tips and variations for them that you might not have thought of
Create shopping lists
Rate recipes
Build your own favorite recipe collection
Email recipes to others
Set up private recipe swaps with your friends and family
Import recipes from other websites
Analyze recipes for their nutritional content
Add images... remember your favorites... and much more.

In BigOven's world, recipes reside in collections, called "recipe boxes", on your local PC. BigOven ships with a very small sample set of recipes, just to get you going (and to keep the initial download size conveniently small), but the trick with BigOven is to search the archive, view the recipe(s) you want, and make frequent use of the "Import!" button at the top of this window to bring it over into your recipe box.

You can see your current recipe box's content by looking at the left-hand window. Click on any recipe to see it in the view on the right. You can click on the Edit tab to edit any recipe in your local recipe box.

With the registered version of the program, you can create new recipe boxes, and keep an unlimited number of them on your PC. (There is no limit to the size of recipe boxes, other than your own hard drive.)

1) Quickly find recipes in our archive !

Want to import more recipes into your recipe box? It's easy.

Click the "Find" button in the toolbar, and type in a word or phrase that you might find in a recipe title, like "Grilled Chicken". You can tell BigOven to look in your current recipe box, or on BigOven.com, which contains over 150,000 recipes. You can click the "Import" button in the View window to import your recipe to your local recipe box. Adjust the serving sizes by clicking on the Scale button at the bottom of the "Edit" window.

Watch a demo of how to find recipes and add them to your shopping list.
(2 min) Requires Flash Player

Once you've found the recipe(s) you'd like, simply click the "Import!" button at the top of the "View" tab. This will import the recipe into your local recipe box. You may wish to mark this as a "Try Soon" recipe. If so, simply right click on the recipe, and choose "@Try Soon!" from the menu. You can quickly come back to the recipes you'd like to try soon with BigOven's easy filtering buttons at the top of the recipe results window.

2) Create your shopping list ! Once you find recipes you like, and you've adjusted the serving sizes to suit your needs, select them and click "Add to Shopping List" (or drag them onto the shopping list in the "Shopping" view). As you add multiple recipes, the items can be combined. Ingredients are automatically grouped by department. Not sure what ingredients go with what recipes? Simply click on each recipe in the Shopping View, and items will be highlighted by recipe.

3) Plan upcoming meals for the week ! Just click "Calendar". Simply find the recipes you want (see Step 1) and drag them onto the calendar.

4) Get nutritional information for your recipes ! Simply find the recipe you'd like, then click "Edit". Double click on the scale icon, and link each ingredient to the USDA nutritional data already included in BigOven. Then, click the View tab to get Nutrtition Facts.

5) Post your three favorite recipes to BigOven.com ! Why not? Join the fun; it's free. Enter a favorite recipe of yours into BigOven for Windows, and click the "Post Recipe" button, and follow the instructions. Who knows? You may have the next Five Star Recipe!

6) Import Recipes from Other Websites or Documents ! Copy any recipe to the clipboard, then choose "Screen Import" from the edit menu. Then, you simply highlight the title and click the button marked "Title". Highlight the ingredients and click the button marked "Ingredients". Etc. When done, press "Import". BigOven will instantly create a recipe in your local recipe box.

7) Share recipes with your favorite newsgroups or email lists easily ! You can copy recipes to the clipboard by highlighting the recipes in the results window, then choosing "Copy Recipe Text to Clipboard" from the edit menu. Then, post it to your Weblog, a newsgroup, or email it to friends. Cooking newsgroups you might be interested in exploring include rec.food.cooking and other rec.food newsgroups.

Paste "* Exported from MasterCook *" recipes directly into BigOven

stevemur — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 07:31:15 GMT

There are many recipes out there that have been pasted to newsgroups in "* Exported from MasterCook *" format.

Did you know that BigOven can read them instantly? Simply:

Visit a newsgroup with the text you'd like to import -- for instance, see this link.
Select the entire text starting with (and this is important) the "* Exported from MasterCook *" line, through the end of the instructions.
Go to BigOven for Windows, and choose Screen Import (Paste).

That's it! You can do the entire operation from start to finish in about 10 seconds. Your recipe will be imported. (BigOven will import multiple recipes in a row if they are all one-right-after-another.)

Of course, the same will also work with the "* Exported from BigOven *" format.

Create your own Recipe Blog and get BigOven Updates Free

stevemur — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 19:30:31 GMT

Have you caught the blog (weblog) bug? There are several great blogging tools out there -- www.blogger.com, and many others.

Several food-related blogs are popping up on the web. If you have a blog, and you use part of it to post your favorite recipes in "-= Exported from BigOven Format =-", complete with the full header and footer, send us your URL (sales@bigoven.com), link back to BigOven from somewhere within your site (see our guidelines at www.bigoven.com/links.htm), and, for as long as you keep your blog live, we'll give you VIP status and free program updates at no charge as thanks for spreading the word.

Searching More Effectively

stevemur — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 20:58:05 GMT

Let's say you want to find an appetizer that contains Brie Cheese.

You could launch BigOven, and simply try to type in "Brie Cheese Appetizer" into the Quick Find Box. That tells BigOven you want to find all recipes that have the specific characters "Brie Cheese Appetizer" somewhere in the title of the recipe or the instructions text. That's awfully limiting. Fine, you say. You back off a bit and simply type "Brie Cheese" in the find box. But that won't narrow it down to appetizers.

The thing to remember about quick find is that doesn't quite work the same way Google does -- it only searches the title and instructions of the recipe for the exact string that you enter. We are looking into more advanced text searches for BigOven, but in the meantime:

Don't Be Shy -- Use Advanced Find!

A much better way to do this type of query is by Advanced Find, which is available via the "More Options" button on the Find dialog.

In the Ingredients section, type in "brie" (not "brie cheese", just "brie"... because some recipes might have ingredient lines containing "brie", some might have "brie cheese", some might have "wheel of brie", and we want them all.) Click the arrow button to add it to your filter.

And in the Keywords section, type in "Appetizers". Click the right arrow to add it.

Tell it to search on BigOven.com via the checkbox at the bottom of the Advanced Find dialog, and click Find Recipes. That's it! BigOven will now find over 40 brie cheese appetizers.

Create placeholder recipes to speed meal planning

stevemur — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:36:22 GMT

To use the meal plan effectively and efficiently, it's sometimes a good idea to create "placeholder" recipes. By "placeholder" recipes, we simply mean ones with a title, and nothing much else.

For instance, let's say you have young kids who like the occasional frozen pizza. Do you really need to type the ingredients all in there? No. You could have one ingredient line in it called "frozen pizza" so your shopping list works out.

It can be very useful to have a "Frozen Pizza" recipe in your recipe box, since you can simply drag and drop that placeholder onto the meal calendar, and tag it with keywords like "@Bridget Likes", "@Jake Likes", etc. You might even consider doing as we do, and tagging it with a keyword like "@Placeholder".

TIP: You might also want to create a generic recipe called "Leftovers from the night before", with no ingredients. This way, you can simply drag it onto your meal calendar to use as a placeholder.

In short, BigOven isn't just about the recipes themselves -- the meal calendar can really help you plan meals well in advance, and avoid that painful "what shall we make tonight?" dilemma that so often strikes when you don't want to think about it.

Using placeholder recipes really speeds up meal planning.

Change the Font Size in Recipe View

stevemur — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 18:13:50 GMT

Tip: Changing the text size setting in Internet Explorer will also change it in BigOven's recipe view.

Tip: You can choose from different recipe display themes via Tools/Options/Recipe Themes. This will not only change how your recipe is viewed in the recipe view, but will also be the setting used when you choose File/Publish to HTML.