BigOven

Except for a few annoyances, BigOven works well as a recipe database. The interface includes views for recipe details, shopping lists, meal planning, and nutritional values. As we would expect with this type of application, you can schedule dishes for different days of the week and have it automatically compile a shopping list. To avoid duplicate entries, you have to click a button to combine them, and even then it can't tell the difference between single and plural items, so you may end up with "1 egg" and "2 eggs" as separate items on the list. However, the program will automatically combine items on the printed list.

The recipe-details view comes with a number of ways to sort, filter, and search. Each recipe is displayed with ingredients, instructions, servings, and a picture, if one is available. The edit screen lets you modify recipes or add new ones. We found the nutrition function difficult to use, as it requires you to manually link each ingredient to a separate database entry. We like the way Big Oven handles shopping lists, letting you drag-and-drop a recipe name to automatically generate a list of the appropriate ingredients. We also like the Web function, which lets you browse the BigOven database and seamlessly import new recipes, but only after you register the program. BigOven includes all the functions we find necessary in a recipe database and wraps them in a useful interface, but minor problems may frustrate users.