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The best recipe management software out there!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 90 / 94
Date: February 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have used Master Cook for many years now, and I am very impressed with it's capabilities. I mainly use it for managing and nutritionally analyzing my own recipes, but the recipes that come with the program are also useful, and easy to customize to your own needs. There are many yahoo (and other) groups dedicated to sharing Master Cook recipes in a format that is very easy to download, and the recipe import feature makes it easy to copy and paste recipes in text format (or from websites - including pictures!) in just a few seconds. It can take a while to type in a lot of recipes from books, or initially typing in your collection if you choose to do it all at once, but I think it is worth the effort. I have tried a variety of other recipe software programs (Cook'n, ChefTec - EXPENSIVE, Meal Master, Instant Home Cooking, CookWare, among a few!) and I have found Master Cook to be by far the best value with the most customization abilities, ease of use, and user-friendliness.

Master Cook also has the capability to keep track of your pantry, create shopping lists, plan your menus, search for recipes based on very specific criteria (ingredients to avoid or include, single nutritional items, your personal rating or category, time to make, cost - if you use the shopping section, etc., and combinations of any of these things).

One thing that I don't like about Master Cook are that it *doesn't* include SUGAR or TRANS FATS in the nutritional information (or a custom nutrition capability - that would be handy for calculating weight watchers points!) I contacted ValuSoft about the possibility of adding these and was told that they do *not* expect to add these in the near future. I was disappointed by this because I think that sugar and trans fat are pretty basic items to nutrition - I hope they reconsider!

Overall, I highly recommend this product if you are interested in maintaining and sharing recipes and/or having control over your nutrition. I have enjoyed the ability to modify recipes so that they are healthier for me and my family, and have given this software (and my recipes/cookbooks from it!) to several family members as gifts.

A treasury of information

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 44 / 46
Date: February 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's true there are not many pictures, but this software wasn't meant to be eye candy. It was created for functionality and to fill a void in the software market. The program has been around for years, and each edition keeps getting better. In version 8.0, MasterCook includes literally thousands upon thousands of recipes compiled from various cookbooks and textbooks used in home cooking as well as the hospitality industry (such as Food for Fifty, On Cooking, etc). I've found delicious and sometimes difficult to find recipes for petits fours, casseroles, and breads. There are even separate sections for "low carb" and vegetarian recipes. I honestly haven't prepared many of the recipes, but I don't think that could be accomplished in my lifetime!

Each recipe can be customized by adding your own notes, ingredients or modifications on the original recipe. You can choose recipes to compose an entire meal and print out a grocery list of all the ingredients required to make that meal. It makes meal planning on a daily or weekly basis a snap (if you have the time to invest). It also has chapters on preparation methods and definitions of terms used in cooking.

The best part is the nutritional analysis, my main reason for buying this software package. You can enter a recipe from your own archives and receive a fully detailed nutritional analysis of the dish. Despite its overly-complicated interface, it is chocked full of information and retails at an affordable price. This is a fantastic organizational tool for a computer-savvy foodie, a nutritionist, or even a chef. I recommend this software as one of the best recipe organizers and cookbooks available for your PC.

Good as a cookbook, not as a recipe organizer

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 32 / 33
Date: June 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I purchased the MasterCook 8 software in part because of the great reviews it received and its PDA

support, but it isn't quite as good for me as it seems to be for most others. The overall design is

very nice, and it looks better than any other cookbook program that I've tried, and the recipes

look delicious. Unfortunately, it's not the program to use if you have a lot of recipes to import.

I've tried importing Meal-Master recipes, plain text recipes and even recipes exported then

reimported by MasterCook 8, but even though the recipes get imported all of the categories

disappear! Not only that, but there doesn't seem to be a standard set of categories for new

cookbooks -- you have to make your own category template. Another big issue for me is eliminating

duplicate recipes; MasterCook 8 checks for duplicates when you first import recipes, but there's no

way to simply check for duplicates in a current cookbook.

All in all, if you don't have many recipes of your own and you aren't inclined to download

thousands of new ones from the Internet the way I did then this is a good program. If, however, you

have a large collection of recipes or want to build one, this is not the best program with which to

organize them. I switched to AccuChef, which isn't as polished in some ways, but its much better at

organizing my recipes.

It looks like I am going to delete it and reinstall MC3.0

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: June 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I finally decided to buy the new edition because of XP and the nutritional information for fats. I love MC 3.0. I hate this one. It would get a 1 star except I like the web feature and the fact I can see the fats otherwise it is a loser in editions.

I have to use two to three steps more for everything and look thru things that I really shouldn't have to do simple chores that I could do in one click with Sierra's version. It also seems buggy. I entered my categories and suddenly when I opened the last time, the template is gone which means I have to redo the entire thing. It is bulky without very good organization. I will say that it is pretty but that is about it. It is coming out a loser and I am starting to look for my 3.0 which is old but fast and more reliable than this.

I use to swear by MC. Course I use to swear by Netscape too. It doesn't mean I can't change my choices. I just wish it was as good as Amazon's service in getting it to me.

Ok I edited this because I had my old MC3 disk shatter. That is another review of a different product. There was no way I wanted MC8 back. I bought MC5. NOT bad at all. It is not as bright an interface. MC8 is much brighter in color causing eye problems The Interface stays very much the same but the Sierra product functions much smoother and with less clicks than the Valuesoft 8.0. MC8 had more problems with crashes and as I said lost all the categories. It also caused major problems importing them. MC5 does the job MC8 claims it does and does fats and imports from the web. The MC5 version does not cause the keyboard/mouse conflict that I had with MC8 and cured by uninstalling. Can I get a -2 for MC8 in stars now?

Please give us back old Sierra product

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: June 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I can't imagine a groups of software writers putting out a product like this. It is slow, buggy, difficult to organize recipes. I spent a lot of time collecting recipes but they are so hard to find in this edition, the whole program is worthless. To those that give this a good product review, you didn't know the old Mastercook 3.0.

It isn't just software, it is a hobby!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: April 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been using Mastercook software for about six years. This is the 4th version I've purchased. I'm totally pleased with 8.0, and have had no problems upgrading the previous versions and integrating the old cookbook collections into the newer program. What I like best about this program is that I can enter the ingredient "scallops" and pull up dozens of recipes and select one based on what is in my pantry. (I've never had much luck planning meals in advance). I do not find the software buggy or difficult to use at all. I've also used it to load recipes onto my Dell Axim PDA (handy when at the grocery store). I've had no difficulty printing recipes onto paper or index cards. After you try a recipe, you can annotate it with comments. Better yet, I even take digital photos of some dishes (like the Christmas duck I made) and add them to the recipes. To the extent there are recipes in the collection that are not appealing, simply delete them! I like having a growing family cookbook which I can print for my kids someday!

Great Program/ Not complete Package

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The program is wonderful but it took me much longer than I though it would to learn. It would have been helpful if I had known this CD was not a package and would not include any sort of instruction booklet. I would have spent the extra money to get the CD and guide book all at once if I knew I wasn't going to get even a 1 page basic guide.

To Much Work!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Granted this is about the only software on the market that semi gives you what you need, but it takes alot of time to learn. I actually had to print out all the help notes, and i'm an experienced user. The shopping list is really worthless. You need to write the recipes exactly in the same wording, so it understands what items to add to your shopping list. When I first got it I spent hours loading and re-loading the software because it would freeze up and just quit. What's with that? I did like the "pantry" feature, but when you want to buy two different sizes of the same item, trying to figure out the ounces takes major time. I think Valusoft needs to listen to their customers before releasing their product. But the recipes are a hugh benefit.That's the only reason I didn't return it....

Mastercook is the King of the Kitchen

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: August 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I started with MC 4.0 and didn't care for it..the interface was too clunky.

I picked up MC 6.0 and really liked it and ValuSoft took it over and has impressed me with each release by fixing some bugs and adding new features such as PDA support in version 7 and with 8.0 we get the Web Import Bar that makes gathering recipes revolutionary.

Unfortunately, ValuSoft seems to have gotten a bad rap in the reviews I've read, but each new release is quite an improvement.

This is great recipe, nutrition and meal planning software. For $20, you can't beat the value of this power-packed software.

Good enough

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been using MasterCook since version 4. I love the ability to get recipes from the internet. And I like the added field for the URL source. Other than that not much has changed from version 6. The search function is still clunky. And I still don't like the recipe display window where you have to scroll down to see ingredients and instructions, not very useful when am cooking and reading from the screen. It should look more like the print preview screen.

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