Evernote did have a standalone recipe book a while back named, aptly, Evernote Food; but development was shut down. Likely because you already have everything you need in the core Evernote app. If you haven’t used Evernote for recipes before, your recipes will need a place to live, so first create a "Recipe Book" notebook in Evernote.
Then you'll need to install and activate the Evernote extension for your browser. In Chrome, head to the web store and select the Evernote Web Clipper extension (not the Evernote Web app, that's the full app for Chrome).
Once it’s installed, browse to your favorite food blog (I’m fond of Joy the Baker, until I overload on the carby goodness and have to hit up Cookie and Kate for some healthy respite). Once there, either select the recipe text on the page (along with the final recipe shot) or just go ahead and click the Evernote icon (it’s the little elephant head).
If all you want to save is the selected text, make sure that option is selected in the pop-up widget.
If you want to make your new virtual recipe book even more user friendly, keep these tips in mind:
- Add Tags. It’s best to add tags before you save the recipe, because once it’s in Evernote, you’ll open up the recipe a dozen times, think to yourself “Oh, I should add tags so that I can find this easier,” and then close it without ever doing it. Add tags for ingredients, nationalities, cooking styles, whatever makes sense to you to codify your recipes.
- Modify the Title. By default, Evernote adds the title of the blog along with the title of the page you’re clipping. Since it will automatically append the website address to the note, you don’t need to keep the title of the blog (add a tag if you want to be able to search by site). Truncate it down to the name of the recipe so that it’s easier to find.
- Include a picture when you clip, or add a picture afterwards for the recipe. Evernote conveniently outlines your selected text in green so you can see if you have the picture included in your selection. I’m sure I have dozens of perfectly good recipes that are in my recipe book that will never get made for the simple fact that they don’t have a picture of the recipe that pops up when I go hunting for things to make. They’re not lying when they say you eat with your eyes first…
- Don’t clip the “Printable!” While it might be tempting to switch to the printable view, since it’s easier to grab just the text you need, Evernote won’t grab the address for the page where the printable originates. It makes it tougher to go back and find the source later if you ever need it.
- Make modifications! The best thing about curating a virtual recipe book is that, as you make modifications to the recipe, you don’t have to just try to remember it for the next time you make it. You can click right in to the recipe and make all the necessary edits.
Do you have a favorite use for Evernote? Is there a trick you have to make clipping and using recipes even easier? I'd love to hear them!
