Big Oven: A Tutorial

I have been promising this for a long time.  I'm finally going to make good on my word!  I'm going to show you how to "do" BigOven for your recipes.

Ready?  Hang on!

First you need to order Big Oven.  If you wouldn't mind ordering it by clicking on the words "BigOven" over at the side bar...it's burgundy/red-ish.  Thank you!, that would be great!  I am an affiliate and I get a little cash-esh for you precious souls buying it.  There...shameless plug done.  Phew!

Anywho...pull up BO on the computer. Should I call it BO?  That always meant "body odor" when I was a kid...hmmm.  Nope, can't do it.  I'll just have to type it out.  O.K. ... pull up BigOven on the computer.

Click the "New" button.

Type in the information:  title, serving size and anything else you want to remember.
Then click OK.
Next you are going to have a mostly blank screen to start with.  It will look like this:

Here you will enter your recipe information. Now a great thing here is that you can enter recipes that are on the computer somewhere else...like, say... on my blog!  ; )  You can import them.  Here's how:
Click on Edit and scroll down to Screen Import.

Another window will pop up.  You will then go to the site on the computer where the recipe is.  Copy and Paste the recipe here in the window...like so:

Next highlight the title and click "Recipe Title".  It will turn one color.  Highlight the ingredients and click "Ingredients" and it will turn another color.  Then highlight the instructions and click "Instructions" like the picture below and it will turn another color.  (You have the option to add notes and serving sizes, too.)

Next click on the "Import" button (near the bottom of that column) and then voila!  It's there on your recipe card. (You can also make new recipe boxes in your program!)

You can also size the recipe down or increase it.  This will come in handy if you import one of my huge casserole recipes and you don't happen to have a ginormous family.  Tell it how many servings you want and it'll calculate it for you!

Just click on the button that my red arrow is pointing to (in the image above) and that little box will pop up.  Type in how many servings you want.  Here I changed it from 24 to 12 and it shows you the scaled down amounts.

Then even better is that you can make your menu from your recipe cards in the program!
What you do is go to "View" and click "Meal Calendar".  You have the option to plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks.  You click the day you want to plan for and drag and drop a meal to the category.  For the sake of time I'm going to plan only dinners.

 You'll see that I highlighted the day on the calendar. I then drug the particular dish to the box and up popped the question of serving size.  When you type in your recipe you need to add the serving size. (I just guess and say 10 or 12 since we have a large gang.)  You can change it for the day like if you were going to have another family over and needed to make a larger casserole.  It would then increase or decrease the amount needed.
Then you click on "Print" and it will bring up a printable menu that's neat and tidy and can be hung on the fridge! Again, for the sake of time the menu is only for one week here. 

But wait!  There's one more thing!  You can even print out a grocery list from your menu!  And it'll condense the amounts you need!  Say you need a cup of milk for one dish, two for another, and 1/4 for this dessert, and then 3/4 for that one...it'll tell you in the list that you need 4 cups of milk!  Now I know that is simple math, but think of how easy it would make it for spices.  No more wondering if you'll have enough!
It looks a little like so:

  
I know some of you may think it's a lot of work, and it is in the beginning if you're typing in all new recipes.  But if you are like me and have a bunch already on the computer or find some on the internet (say a food blog that you just adore!  hint, hint *wink*) then you will be all set.  It's super easy.  And it's not super expensive, either!  It's only $29.95. 


If you have any questions please post them here because other folks may want to ask that same question.  I'll try to answer them the best I can!