Reclaiming Dinner with Yumprint

When Pinterest rolled into town it took me a while to look into it, but once I did I realized that it filled a huge hole in my life.

Seriously.

Well, seriously in a completely silly sort of way.

For years I'd had links upon links of bookmarks in my bookmark folders to many great and amazing ideas that I'd found in my internet browsing. It was hard to keep track of which was which, but it worked. Sort of.

Then along came Pinterest and it changed my life. :)

I spent two days going through all my crafty and shoppy bookmarks sorting through which were keepers and which were duds and "pinning" my little brains out. It was like reconnecting with old friends --- and now they were all organized and right in front of me for my great viewing pleasure as pictures.

SUCH a genius idea.

In every way but one.

Recipes.

How many people have I talked to that say something along the lines of, "Pinterest has such great looking recipes on it, but almost every one I've made has been disgusting!"?

Many, my friends. Many. And it's happened to you, too.

A dirty trick, to be sure.

Me? I just don't cook anything from Pinterest - even though they look good - because I'm a Cautious Cooker. I want to hear what someone else has to say about it before I'll jump into the deep end and use my time, resources, and taste buds to cook something that very-well may taste like cat food. (Unless that something is in the form of a brownie or somesuch. I figure when you're adding butter, sugar, cocoa, and flour together, how wrong can it really go, right?)

Also, I'm not going to take recommendations from,

"Another pinner says . . . "

Ya know what I mean? Not really instilling much confidence with what "another pinner" had to say. I want to know what my friends, family, or favorite food blogger thinks (not the creepy people who live across the street from my friend and people-watch the neighborhood from their open garage).

Enter  yumprint.

A fabulous website that is starting to save dinner at our house.

It's like Pinterest - for food!  (Only better!)  Be still my heart!

I can save recipes from anywhere on the web and organize them into cookbooks and MENUs! I can see what recipes my friends and others are saving and read their reviews. And if I'm super lazy, I can see what they're cooking for dinner this week and just copy them.

I love it.

I've had a few places that I trust and have become my "go-to" websites to look for new recipe ideas and I've also come across some tasty-looking ones on friends blogs. On a rare occasion I'll spend hours combing through recipes on websites like food.com or allrecipes.com. Wherever I'm looking, I'll always print off a couple (if I have ink) or I'll write down the recipe (on the back of my kids' coloring page) with grand plans of putting it into my "Recipes Binder", but inevitably (before or after I've made it) I can never find it again. It gets thrown in the trash by accident (because it looks like a coloring page) or gets left to fend for itself in the never-ending stack of recipes that I never look at again because Ican'trememberifIlikeditornotandrecipefilingisn'tthatmuchfun.

With Yumprint, I can save recipes right when I find them. I can even edit them and add my own notes. It's incredible!

Last night we had some new friends over for dinner. They're vegetarians (or herbivores - if you're Elsie) and while I have a few okay or so-so vegetarian recipes (you know, like quesadillas), I really wanted something to knock our socks off --- and I didn't want to spend all my cooking time combing the internet for something that looked good, but might taste questionable.

I went to Yumprint, clicked on my cousin's profile, found her Vegetarian cookbook, and found an incredible recipe that she and others had made and reviewed for Vegetable Tamale Pie.

And it was SO GOOD!!! I was seriously, doing a happy dance with how well it turned out. - And it was made even better because I was able to quickly read other reviews about minor adjustments that made it even better. Afterward I added my own notes, so that I can remember next time --- and there will be a next time.

Hooray!

After a year-long break from making consistent menus, I'm finally getting back in the game and having so much fun doing it! I am finally breaking out of my Family Cookbook and trying new recipes that I love.

Thank you, Yumprint, for filling yet another hole in my life that I didn't even know existed.

{{{happy sigh}}}

Now.

What all of YOU need to do is go to Yumprint and sign up! So that I can see what YOU'RE cooking and get even more ideas!

http://www.yumprint.com