fine Cooking & Cook Fresh iPad App

I've loved Fine Cooking ... well forever. So much in fact that a couple of years ago, my daughters bought me a three year subscription to it, for a birthday or Mother's Day. I may not be sure of the occasion but I am definitely sure it brings a smile to my face every time I find it in my mailbox. One feature I particularly love is the section where you can mix and match ingredients to make them your own...like the Meatloaf I wrote about... or the short ribs... I could go on forever, but this post is really about their new awesome iPad app called The Best of CookFresh which you can get at iTunes for $4.99 and worth double that at least!

I love the layout... so pretty and so easy to use. There's even a user guide for basic navigation. There's a browser mode that will display thumbnails of all the articles. A slide scrubber... for us non-techies, that just means that you can use your finger to flip from screen to screen, much like, turning pages in a book, and a back button to let you go back to the last page viewed.

There are interactive elements, like video bites, sound bites and test kitchen tips on the recipes. And even a table of contents just like the magazine. You can click on the list of articles or touch one of the glorious photos to go directly to the article of choice.

Just to give you a taste... pun definitely intended...of my first trip through iPad Heaven... from the section called "Make it Tonight 30 Recipes, 30 Minutes, Start to Finish" Eight pretty dishes representing each categorie... pasta, chicken & turkey, beef & pork, seafood, vegetarian, soups & sandwiches, sides & desserts. I clicked on Seafood - one of my very favorite food groups. At first I admit, I was slightly disappointed. There were only four options. But I scrolled through glorious recipes like seared scallops with cauliflower, brown butter and basil.. with a video clip of how to sear scallops and a sound clip on what type of scallops to buy - there is a difference... you want dry packed.

Each dish looked wonderful, but I had just bought some mussels and fresh scallops from my favorite local fish monger, so I kept scrolling through the four choices and at the bottom was another - and my favorite surprise feature... the button that says "touch here for more quick seafood ideas" which takes you to their website and I found the recipe I actually saw first in this month's issue ... Steamed Musssels with Chorizo, Smoked Paprika & Garlicky Croutons. ... no waiting for the next issue to come out and you've forgotten where you saw the recipe in the first place.... sorry... I digress.

Naturally, I can never leave well enough alone, so here's my adaptation...

Steamed Mussels with Scallops, Merguez & Smoked Paprika

Remember the expression.... "the gift that keeps on giving"? Well CookFresh does that in spades! Unlike many magazine apps, which just share one or two issues, this one is always current, because there is always something new to link to once you've already created all the wonderful dishes, read all the fantastic articles and learned all the cool cooking tips.

Bottom line: my favorite app yet!