Sun-dried Tomato Pasta

Here is an absolutely delicious dish for a fancy night in. Light the candles, pour the wine, and put on some Italian music for a romantic (and delicious!) evening at home. Or just make it for a tasty alternative to the typical spaghetti night. Bonus, makes great leftovers!

Ingredients:
1 lb noodles
5 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 Tbs minced garlic
1 cup diced roma tomato
¼ cup sun-dried tomato
1 Tbs basil
1 cup chicken broth
½ cup white wine
3 Tbs butter
parmesan cheese
pine nuts

1. Cook pasta according to directions on package.
2. When done, drain then toss lightly with 2 Tbs olive oil.
3. While pasta is cooking, heat 4 Tbs olive oil in skillet. Mince garlic, then add salt, pepper, and garlic to skillet.
4. Dice tomatoes and lightly chop sun dried tomatoes.
5. Add tomatoes, dried tomatoes, basil, chicken broth, and wine to skillet.
6. Bring to a boil.
7. Add butter and sauce to the cooked and drained pasta. Toss to combine.
8. Serve topped with parmesan, pine nuts, and basil.

Download the recipe for RecipeBox here.

RecipeBox Online Recipe Creation Tool

Good news!

RecipeBox now has a online recipe creation tool.

You can find it here

Please note that it is a simple first step, and there are better things to come. That said, this should make entering recipes much easier.

The interface is straight forward and should be intuitive to use, but here is a quick walkthrough:

Enter the name of the recipe in the "Recipe Name" box and the description in the "Description" in the description box.

To add ingredients, click the "Add Ingredient" button. This will create a new ingredient item. The left input is where you enter the amount, the right input is where you enter the name of the ingredient. To delete an ingredient, just click the "X".

Adding instructions is much the same.

Once your recipe is entered, click "Done". This will create a file that you can download to your computer. The file is a zip file named based on the name of the recipe you are creating. Save this file when prompted, attach the file to an email, and send the email to an account you can open from your phone.

From the email application on your phone, open the attachment and RecipeBox should recognize the file and load it.

Initially we were hoping to handle the emailing step for you, but as we currently do not require a login of any kind, we didn't want our app used to spam people.

Anyway, please try it out and let us know what you think!

Peanut Butter Play Dough

Some of the best recipes are also the simplest. Here is a fun snack that will both entertain and satisfy.

You will need:

about 2 TBS peanut butter (creamy or chunky)

about 2 TBS dry milk

about 1 tsp honey

To make: 

Take one large blob of peanut butter and plop in into a bowl. 

Add about a teaspoon of honey. 

Pour a small amount of dry milk on top and smash with a fork to mix, adding dry milk until it becomes a play dough consistency. 

Enjoy!

Download the recipe for RecipeBox here!

RecipeBox

Over the past few weeks we've been thinking about RecipeBox and trying to nail down what exactly it is that we want out of the project.

Admittedly, a main goal of RecipeBox is to learn. Learn how to create a product that is quality and that people will use. Learn how to market that product and build a following of people who are interested because of the benefits that product provides them. Learn how to do something useful and convince people of its usefulness.

So how do we do that? We're not sure, but at this point we believe the biggest obstacle for RecipeBox is its high barrier to entry. Typing on phones is no fun. Copying recipes you already have someplace else is no fun.

To that end, we hope to roll out a (very basic) online recipe creation tool in the next few weeks. This will allow you to create a recipe on your computer and easily transfer it to your phone. From there, we hope to expand the site to allow syncing recipes between the site and your phone, user accounts and online recipe backup, and increased an increased social, collaborative, community aspect to the project.

Everyone has to eat. Eating is a social activity. Eating together strengthens relationships and forges bonds. What if we could extend that and make cooking a community activity? People need to eat. People crave connection with others. Sounds like a good combination to us.