I just started moving my recipes all to ... github.
I find it easier to manage a bunch of markdown files than anything else.
Also rewriting them lets me list ingredients as groups as far as what goes together in a bowl or whatever ...the laundry list of ingredients so many sites list drives me crazy.
Outside of America's Test Kitchen... I've never found a blog's exposition on why they did what they did helpful. More often than not their description actually makes me question if they actually cooked the recipe often enough (or at all).
I had so much fun making <food>! I love to recreate recipes for <food>. I’ve been so pleased with the end result! It is the best dish ever! My <relatives> really enjoy it. You will enjoy it too. If you're planning to have just one half, you may want to reconsider, because once you start, you won't be able to stop. This is really the best one I've found! Please see my other recipes and visit the links below. I really like making this with my <equipment>. Read on to find out the secret to making totally awesome <food>. There are so many different side dishes to pair with <food>. Here are a few of my favorites: <side 1>, <side 2>.
What is <food>?
(1 paragraph explanation)
What is the best way to make <food>?
(1 paragraph, mentioning <food> by name at least 8 times)
What are benefits of <food>?
The aggressive SEO tactics, more than anything, are what drives me crazy.
I blame google more than anything. Unfortunately, stuffing the content to hit minimum word counts is what ranks in google, and google obviously has a monopoly on search. Without this annoying blah blah, these websites would never rank and it wouldn’t be worth the authors time to make a recipe website. Maybe google should make a blog post on a “recipes” algo update that punishes filler content (of course they will never do that, they have all the arrogance befitting a monopoly provider). Readers, SEOs, cooks and even google themselves would benefit /rant over
I mainly use BBC Good Food. Being taxpayer funded and having unlimited google juice means they don’t need to play this game.
I have a system based on Markdown-formatted (along with some custom markup for metadata) recipes on Dropbox, and some Python code that generates a formatted (as in, nice looking, like a proper cookbook) PDF cookbook. I then print the cookbook, make my notes in it, and once it gets too greasy/scribbled on, I consolidate the notes into the Markdown files and re-print. Every time I add a new recipe to my regular 'rotation', I add it to this cookbook (along with some tweaks for my ingredient availability and equipment), to not let it become just a random stack of disjoint recipes. This way I grow a proper 'family cookbook' that I hope I can pass on to my kids when they move out. It's also somewhat integrated with a broader meal-planning system, think GTD for keeping yourself fed.
I think the main problem with 'recipe websites' is that people don't want 'recipe websites'. They want 'cookbook websites', i.e. some editorial oversight over recipe quality, some standardization in units, style of directions, have a picture with each recipe, etc. What am I going to do with 100k crappy half-asses notes on everything someone somewhere ever threw together in a kitchen somewhere? I'd much rather have 2000 quality recipes that I know I can rely on.
I find it easier to manage a bunch of markdown files than anything else.
Also rewriting them lets me list ingredients as groups as far as what goes together in a bowl or whatever ...the laundry list of ingredients so many sites list drives me crazy.
Outside of America's Test Kitchen... I've never found a blog's exposition on why they did what they did helpful. More often than not their description actually makes me question if they actually cooked the recipe often enough (or at all).