Cooking alongside your digital device is a reality for many home cooks today. Whether we’re searching for the perfect recipe or culinary how-to, 
more and more moms are taking their phones to the kitchen to assist with weeknight dinner and/or weekend entertaining preparations.
There are currently hundreds of recipe apps available, and it can be difficult to know which ones are worth the coin (if they aren’t free). Arguably the most used recipe app is Epicurious. This free compilation of reputable recipes from Gourmet, Bon Appetit and Cookie magazines is an excellent resource for all home cooks. Recipes can be obtained via a keyword search or theme menu (picnic ideas, spring brunches, weeknight dinners), and a colour photo accompanies almost each of them.
Perhaps less well known, by equally as useful, is the Whole Foods Market Recipes app. For starters, it’s free and its contents consist of a database of healthy, delicious, family friendly foods. With recipes categorized by ingredient or dietary preference, this an excellent tool for cooks with food allergies/restrictions in the family. All of the recipes include the nutritional information and full cooking instructions, making it easy for the humblest of home cooks.
Somewhat newer, but incredibly handy – at least to those who frequent farmer’s markets – is Locavore, a free app that allows users to see what’s in season in their area, while locating the nearest farmer’s market via GPS tracking. Families looking to make local purchases will enjoy this tool, which provides information on how long a particular food will be available in their region and which goods will be accessible in the coming weeks.
Perhaps the most well reviewed paid app is Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything. At $4.99, this digital spin-off of his hugely successful cookbook is exactly what it claims to be: a recipe resource that does in fact guide you on how to cook everything. Loaded with over 2,000 recipes and 400 how-to illustrations, this app is truly an invaluable support system for the kitchen.
Making dinner is not the only priority for many of us who flock to the kitchen, and home bakers will likely enjoy the Martha Stewart Makes Cookies app. At $2.99, it’s a fraction of the cost of a cookbook, and contains many of Miss Martha’s popular cookie recipes. Beautifully designed, this at-your-fingertips baking resource with instructional videos will ensure your favourite homemade cookies are only a few delicious clicks away.
Most recipe apps and digital cooking tools are not only more convenient than their printed counterparts, but they are also more space efficient and eco-friendly, saving both trees and money. But ultimately they allow us to access recipes for dinner, snacks and school bake sales in a pinch, and that, as Martha would say, is a very good thing.