Oregano Recipe Manager Review
Price: $3.99
Version Reviewed: 1.1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPad
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Oregano is designed to catalogue and electronically replace every recipe in the kitchen, and it does so with a minimalist, easily-navigated interface. Once open, the app presents users with a common selection of recipe categories, including All Recipes, Favorites, Entrees, separate categories for each main meal, and user-defined custom categories. Click a category, and all recipes meeting that criteria are listed, complete with photos. As recipes are added, it's a good idea to tag them with relevant categories to make navigation easier, as Oregano does not automate this task.
Many of my own recipes come from a variety of foodie-related sites, so it's good to know that Oregano has a built-in web browser complete with a list of supported websites. Don't look for a comprehensive selection here, but most of the prominent sites are available, including Cooking Channel, Chow, Epicurious and Bon Appetit. Hopefully, developer Sockii will add more to this list in future updates, but for now it's acceptable and useful.
Once recipes are entered into Oregano, it's a snap to add the ingredients to a grocery list component of the app. However, again there are some catches to this function. Single ingredients cannot be added - only a list of EVERY ingredient in the recipe. That means a list cluttered with items like salt and pepper, that are most likely not needed on a trip to the grocery store.
Oregano isn't a bad app; it just doesn't live up to its initial promise. Evernote can do much more than recipes, but it handles them easily (and cross-platform and free). Oregano needs more work before I can recommend paying $3.99 for it.