One tsp.

Move Your Recipes to One tsp., A Great ZipList Alternative

Mike — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:40:01 +0000

ZipList recently announced they are closing down. That’s unfortunate news for folks who have been using the service to store their recipes online. If you are looking for a new home for your online recipes, take a look at One tsp.. We can import your ZipList recipes and bookmarks directly into a new or existing One tsp. account.

One tsp. is an easy to use recipe organizer that work in any web browser on your desktop computer, mobile phone or tablet. Our Recipe Clipper bookmarklet makes it easy to capture recipes from many popular recipe sites. Mobile shopping lists make it easy to figure out what you need to buy for upcoming meals.

If you’re looking for a ZipList alternative, contact [email protected] and send along your exported recipes from ZipList and we’ll import them into your new online recipe box!

An Open-Source Recipe Parser

Mike — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 22:45:42 +0000

Capturing and organizing recipes from many sources has always been the goal of One tsp. I started building the Recipe Clipper a few years ago and maintaining it is indeed a labor of love. It take a bit of care to add support for new web sites and to maintain currently supported recipe sites as they go through their own changes. And since many people have asked how they can help with making One tsp. better I’ve decided to open up the recipe parsing software to the public.

The code for One tsp.’s recipe parsing is now available on GitHub:

https://github.com/onetsp/RecipeParser

Please reach out with questions and comments. I’d love to see how you can contribute to the parser or how you’ll use it in other projects!

Contribute Your Changes to Our Help Pages

Mike — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:08:35 +0000

I receive frequent requests from people asking how they can help with building One tsp., or making the site better. Today, I’m opening up a small opportunity to contribute. You can now find the help pages for One tsp. on GitHub. If you know how to use ‘git’ and can write some very basic HTML, you can grab a copy of our repo and submit new help pages or make corrections to existing pages.

Our public git repo can be found here:

https://github.com/onetsp/help

Thanks for your help in making One tsp. better.

This is Personal—An Update on Security and Privacy for One tsp. Members

Mike — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 22:12:22 +0000

If you’re aware of the privacy dust ups around recent news from Instagram, you may have questions about how other free web services, like One tsp., are making use of your personal data. I want to take a moment to highlight a change to the site (also reflected in our Terms of Use).

We are now using SSL connections for all browser sessions on One tsp. This should add additional protection around how passwords, profile details, and your recipes. Payments for Pro Accounts, by the way, are processed by PayPal’s secure servers and have always been protected by higher security.

One tsp. is possibly the best place to store all of your recipes online. We don’t share your recipes, your email address, or other personal information with anyone. What you put on One tsp. is for your own personal use, and it will always stay that way.

One tsp. is not cluttered with ads because we provide a free service for storing up to 150 recipes and charge a subscription fee for Pro Accounts that allow you to store additional recipes. And if you really like One tsp., we’ll gladly accept donations toward our hosting fees.

If you ever have any questions about this, please get in touch.

Lots of Behind-the-Scenes Work

Mike — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:38:33 +0000

It’s been about six months since I announced the Recipe Clipper on the blog, and I’ve been pretty quiet ever since. Earlier this spring, I was house hunting, which was followed by packing and moving to a new home this summer. This kind of project tends to keep one busy, I must say.

But things are still cranking behind-the-scenes at One tsp.! The Clipper has been awesome. It has literally allowed some One tsp. users to build collections of hundreds, or even thousands, of recipes. Having that many recipes in your account starts to make it difficult to find things. Because of this, I’ve been working on a number of projects to help ensure that One tsp. is fast, stable, and easy to use. These changes may not always be apparent or obvious on the site, but trust me in that they are important to keeping the site alive and well.

I’ve also been working to expand the number of sites from where recipes can be clipped. Aside from the major sites that are named on the Recipe Clipper page, One tsp. now supports clipping from over 200 different recipe web sites. If you have sent me an email asking when the Clipper will work on XYZ web site, please be patient. I’m trying to expand support as much as possible, and as much feasible. (I get a lot of these requests, so my apologies if I have not responded about your specific request!)

Introducing the One-Click Recipe Clipper

Mike — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:16:48 +0000

I love the wealth of recipes on the Internet. I frequently like to cook new things, rather than constantly turn out old standards. In any given week, I visit at least three different recipe sites in search of something for dinner. Sites like Bon Appetit, Epicurious, AllRecipes, and Food Network (as well as many, many others!) provide an unbelievable selection of recipes within quick reach. And by comparing two versions of the same recipe, I can figure out ways to improvise and make a version that suits me best.

The problem I’ve always had is keeping track of where I’ve found all of these recipes. Many of these sites provide a Recipe Box feature that allows you to collect recipes, yet nearly all of them limit you to collecting recipes from one site. This is why I set out a few years ago to create One tsp. — a place where I can store recipes found anywhere on, or off, the Internet.

The task of copying recipes into One tsp. has gotten a whole lot easier. A few months ago, I released a one-click tool for copying recipes from some of the top recipe sites directly into your One tsp. recipe box. The “Recipe Clipper” is a bookmarklet that you can add to your web browser. It’s just like a bookmark, but instead of pointing to a web address, it contains a small amount of JavaScript code that copies the recipe you’re viewing into your One tsp. account. That’s right… with one click, you can copy an entire recipe right into One tsp. And from there you can add tags, create shopping lists, and go mobile — just like you do with any of the recipes you’ve already added to One tsp.

If you want to see it in action, check out this video demonstration of One tsp. that highlights the bookmarklet.

Then install the Recipe Clipper into your browser* and start clipping recipes.

Instructions for installing on an iPhone or iPad are available in the help articles.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the clipper. You can always feel free to contact me directly with questions or comments!

* Sorry, but Internet Explorer is not yet supported.

One tsp. is now in the Chrome Web Store

Mike — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:56:10 +0000

One tsp. is now listed in the “lifestyle” section of the Chrome Web Store. If you’re a Google Chrome user, install One tsp. today!

Add Photos To Your Recipes

Mike — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:55:23 +0000

I want to wish everyone who’s been tuning in a Happy New Year! And what better way to kick it off than with another feature announcement.

There has been no shortage of emails asking about how to post photos for your recipes on One tsp. I’m happy to say that (after a loooong wait) we now support recipe photos. You’ll find a link on the right-hand side of the recipe page that will allow you to upload a JPG, GIF, or PNG that will appear with your recipe on the web site.

So get in there and start uploading!

Backup Your Recipes Offline

Mike — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:40:18 +0000

A number of users have asked whether they can make a backup of their recipes stored on One tsp. to their own computer. As of today, the answer is… yes!

Today we released an export feature that is available from your profile page. By downloading your recipes to your computer, you can be sure they will be available even if you cannot connect to the Internet.

To get started, sign into One tsp., then click on your username at the top of the page. The download option is available in the section titled, “Backup My Recipes”.

Your recipes will be downloaded as multiple text files stored in a single zip file. Each file contains a single recipe. We are using a custom format for exported recipes. Because we allow for flexible formatting in the recipes you add to One tsp., it is difficult to adapt every recipe to some of the more common recipe formats. However, we use the same format for all of the exported recipes and it is certainly possible to parse these files into other formats (for all of you nerds out there).

A sample of our current recipe format is shown below. Contact us if you’d like more information about the format, or have requests for other formats.

----- Recipe exported from One tsp. (ver 0.1)

Mom's Granola

Home-made granola, served with milk.

Source: Family recipe

Yield: 7-1/2 Cups
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes

INGREDIENTS

4 C quick oats
2-1/2 C wheat germ
1 C coconut
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 T brown sugar
1/2 C honey
1/3 C salad oil
1 tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix first five ingredients together.
2. Add honey and mix well.
3. Add oil and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
4. Spread in un-greased 10"x15" pan.
5. Bake at 325F for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. When cool, store in covered container.
7. Optional: Nuts and raisins, sesame seed, sunflower seed may be added.
8. Serve with milk.

----- Recipe end

Use Tags to Categorize Your Recipes

Mike — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:16:21 +0000

Some users have asked for additional ways to rate their favorite recipes in One tsp. I made tags available for recipes from the very beginning and they make it easy to slice and dice your recipe list in a variety of ways.

Here are some ideas for new tags you can use to organize your recipes.

Organize levels of difficulty

Many recipe sites have a specific field available for easy, medium, or difficult. Use these tags on each of your recipes to figure out which dishes are going to be a cinch, and which are going to require a little extra motivation.

Additionally, think of using tags like one-dish or casserole to label recipes that are going to make for easy clean up.

Five Stars

We don’t have stars on the site to rate each of your recipes, but you can make your own with tags. Try tagging recipes with one to five asterisks: *, **, ***, ****, and ***** to highlight which recipes you like best (and least). Of course, if you don’t like a recipe, why are you keeping it in the first place?

Primary ingredients

This should be an obvious choice. Most of my recipes are stored with a protein or other primary ingredient. Think of tags like: chicken, pork, tomato, or tofu. Additionally, you might specify more general ingredients or descriptions like vegetarian, fat-free, gluten-free, or diabetic to keep track of health-conscious recipes.

Which course?

I use tags like soup, salad, and entree to distinguish recipes that fit specific courses. Additionally, I’ll use breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I want to split out recipes that maybe I’d only eat in the morning, noon, or evening.

International cuisines

Finally, if you consider yourself a worldly eater, organize each of your recipes according to country of origin. I have a lot of Japanese and Italian recipes in my cookbook. Obviously you could use other like Middle-Eastern, Latin-American, or maybe German to organize your own recipes.

Share your ideas

Have your own favorite ideas for tags that I haven’t covered here? Share them in the comments below!