Tag: android apps

Oh, I just love carrying around 40-pounds worth of cookbooks while I commute to and from work…said no one ever. Sure, print cookbooks are great, nothing can beat those large glossy photos and full-page ingredient lists, but they’re not the most practical reference guide when you have 10 minutes between work and the grocery store to figure out what’s for dinner tonight. Cooking apps to the rescue! With wireless Internet for tablets and other hand-held devices, cooking apps are like having a professional chef helping you in the comfort of your own kitchen.

Mario Batali Cooks

This app for regional Italian cuisine includes 63 of Batali’s most popular recipes, plus tons of videos on basic kitchen techniques. Batali is credited with creating 100 percent of the content himself. So if you ever wanted to take personal cooking lessons with a celebrity chef, the Mario Batali Cooks app gets you pretty darn close. The app features the ability to browse recipes according to prep-time, season, Italian region or kid-friendliness. Wine pairings and full images are included with every recipe. The cost of the app is $9.99, and it’s compatible with iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android.

Simply Organic Recipe Application

The Simply Organic app contains more than 1,400 recipes that feature organic foods. Search the database by ease of preparation, name, time or your personal ratings. With a single finger tap you can view a complete ingredient list, nutritional facts, chef suggestions and step-by-step instructions. Download the app for free on your iPad.

iCookbook

As the winner of the 2012 and 2013 Appy Awards, among many other prestigious tech awards, it’s safe to say iCookbook is “The Joy of Cooking” for a new generation. It’s made to appeal to everyday cooks who are preparing meals for families and want easy, delicious, healthful, budget-friendly recipes. iCookbook includes more than 2,000 recipes with new recipes available every month for free. The Meal Builder feature allows you to drag and drop recipes to create your own meals, and you can save all your favorites in My Recipe Box for easy access. This app is available on Windows 8, Android and Apple products — all for $4.99.

Grub Hub

Okay, it’s not technically a cooking app, but who wants to cook every night? With Grub Hub and the Internet, you can have a tasty meal delivered to your door any night of the week wherever you are. This clever app was invented by two hungry friends who were no doubt tired of sifting through junk drawer menus and racking their brains trying to remember the answer to the age old question: “Who delivers?” The Grub Hub site explains how easy to use their app really is: Enter your address, and the app lists all of the local restaurants that deliver. After ordering, you can track the progress of your dinner and even change your order if you’re quick enough. The app is free to use, and the site’s secure, meaning you don’t have to worry about paying with a credit card. Grub Hub is compatible with Apple products including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Diana Baird

Diana is a nutritionist from Connecticut. When she’s not helping clients with dietary advice, she writes health and fitness articles for various blogs.

Smartphones and tablets aren’t just for business anymore. They’re portable personal entertainment devices, too. You don’t have to stare glumly into space while waiting for the doctor to call you back for your appointment or while riding the bus on your morning commute. Just download some fun, free apps. You’ll never be bored again and you won’t pay a dime for the privilege. Here are five awesome ones to get you started.

Face Swap

What could be more fun than putting your face on someone else’s body? Nothing, right? The sheer simple genius of this app is part of its addicting appeal. All you need is a picture of the person with whom you want to swap faces (you can Photoshop this if necessary). Did you ever want your brother and sister to switch faces? Have you ever wished your boyfriend had the body of Brad Pitt? Does the thought of putting your annoying mother-in-law’s face on the body of Honey Boo Boo’s mother amuse you? This app will provide you with hours of innocent to semi-wicked amusement.

Duck Dynasty Beard Booth

Who doesn’t love “Duck Dynasty“? You watch it. You know you do. The Duck Dynasty Beard Booth allows you to choose from one of several beard styles worn by the men of “Duck Dynasty” and place that beard on a photo of anyone you know. It works on both new and existing photos and allows you to re-size the beard to fit the face. Beard up all of your family and friends. You can even share the results on social media and add custom captions.

Talking Ben the Dog

This app is simply astounding in its inherent hilarity. You’ve got to get Ben the Dog (a retired chemistry professor, no less) to talk to you. He prefers to read the paper, so you have to get his attention. Poke, tickle, or slap him and he’ll put down his paper and interact with you. Go to voice mode and you can have a conversation with him. Go to lab mode and you can get Ben to perform some awesomely funny chemistry experiments. Best of all, you can record all of these interactions and share them with your friends.

Break

The Break app has the serious potential to keep you in stitches for hours at a time. Once you start it up, it’s hard to put it down. A companion to the humor site, Break.com, this is a funny videos app that goes beyond the everyday video showcases. There are picture galleries of funny photos, videos of side-splitting pranks and fails, movie trailers, funny songs and Break.com exclusive web series and celebrity interviews. It’s all there in one free app that is more addictive than chocolate.

Ghost Detector

Now is your chance to see if your house is haunted. This wonderful app has built-in radar that will detect ghosts within a nine-mile radius. It also has an EMF filter so you can hear if the ghosts are trying to talk to you. Don’t sit around wondering what’s going bump in the night. Find out for sure and maybe even make a new ghostly friend with the Ghost Detector.