MacGourmet News

With the close of 2005, I thought I'd do something a little different and countdown the top 20 downloaded MacGourmet.com recipes. Check out this list for recipes from this year that you may have missed! Now on with the countdown!

• 20. Beef Oriental


• 19. Snowball Cookies


• 18. Veal Steaks with Mushrooms


• 17. Spritz Cookies


• 16. Spaghetti Bianca


• 15. Turkey Vegetable Meat Loaf


• 15. Belgian Potato Soup


• 15. Chicken Cacciatore


• 14. Banana Nut Bread


• 13. Turkey Kabobs and Greek Salad


• 12. Pork Filet Karamba


• 11. Mango Trifle

• 10. Paella with Prawns


•  9. Spicy Oriental Chicken with Clementines


•  8. New York-style Cheesecake


•  7. Brochette with Salmon and Avocado


•  6. Chicken Tandoori and Mango Chutney Dip


•  5. Baked Tomatoes and Mozzarella


•  4. Chicken Curry and Mango Salad


•  3. Baked Vegetables with Halloumi Cheese


•  2. Danish Strawberry Cake

and the #1 downloaded MacGourmet.com recipe for 2005 is...

Moroccan Carrot Salad

This is a very refreshing dessert to be served during the Christmas holidays. You can use the fresh winter pears and frozen berries. A scoop of ice cream of light portion of whipped cream goes well with the fruit. -- EclecticCooking.com

Ingredients:

4 firm, ripe pears
Lemon juice (ca. 1 Tbsp)
3 Tbsp Sugar
Butter (ca. 3 Tbsp)
1 Cup (2 dl) frozen raspberries, thawed

Sauce
1 Cup (2 dl) frozen raspberries, thawed
4 Tbsp orange juice
2 Tbsp Chambord (a sweet wine), Sherry Herring, or other sweet wine

Directions:

Peel and core the pears. Slice them into quarters or thinner and dip them in lemon juice. In a heavy saucepan, melt the sugar then add the butter and keep stirring until the mixture has caramelized. Add the pears and saute them over medium heat until they are soft, but not mushy. Remove the pears and keep them covered. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce and add them to the saucepan. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes. If you don't like the seeds from the raspberries, press the sauce through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. If you don't mind the seeds, put the sauce through a blender until smooth.

To serve, pour a little of the sauce on a plate, arrange the pear slices in an appealing arrangement and top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a dollop of whipped cream or just plain and garnish with fresh raspberries and/or strawberries and a sprig of mint.

(Serves 4-6)

Sauted Pears in Raspberry Sauce. To import, drag image to your MacGourmet recipe box.

MacGourmet for OS X, which is free to download and try, features lots of great features like drag and drop import, clipping recipes from web pages, publishing recipes to your .Mac account and much more. Give it a try today!

Read the latest Recipe of the Week.

We'd just like to wish everyone a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and a happy new year! Happy Holidays!

MacGourmet 1.1.8, a small maintenance release, is now available.

This free update is available from the MacGourmet download page.

As always, you can find a full list of the changes here.

This is just a small update that fixes database errors that were being displayed during file imports. The errors were benign, but shouldn't have been displayed.

You will not believe how easy it is to make this and how absolutely delicious it is as well. A great winter dessert. -- EclecticCooking.com

Ingredients:

4 Gravenstein apples
1/2 cup dark rum
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp instant coffee
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter

Directions:

Peel, core and halve the apples. In a medium pot, heat the rum, water, sugar, instant coffee, cinnamon and butter until bubbly. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add apples and cook apples until tender, basting apples occasionally. Remove apples and set aside. Cook the rum and butter sauce until quite thick.
Serve apple one half apple each in the center of the plate, drizzle a bit of the rum sauce around the outside of the apple, and grate with a bit of fresh nutmeg.

(Serves 8)

Butter Rum Apples. To import, drag image to your MacGourmet recipe box.

MacGourmet for OS X, which is free to download and try, features lots of great features like drag and drop import, clipping recipes from web pages, publishing recipes to your .Mac account and much more. Give it a try today!

Read the latest Recipe of the Week.

Because last year people asked for it, MacGourmet is now available on CD for your unique holiday gift giving! For just $29.95 (plus shipping and handling*), only $5 more than the download version, you can now order MacGourmet on CD. The CD edition includes the latest version of MacGourmet and a serial number, the print-quality version of the documentation (in PDF format) and sample recipes, all packaged in a DVD case.

To order your copy, visit the Advenio online store, and just select the CD edition when you place your order. Happy Holidays from Advenio!

*Currently only shipping to addresses in the U.S.

MacGourmet 1.1.7 is now available.

You can find a full list of the changes here.

This free update is available from the MacGourmet download page.

This release again benefits from the development of the next major version. It resolves a handful of usability issues and includes a couple of optimizations. As bugs are fixed in the next version, they will continue to be pushed out in maintenance releases, so that you won't have to wait for small improvements.

Advenio is pleased to announce the opening of the MacGourmet Recipe Swap, a new discussion board for MacGourmet users. There they can swap recipes and collections, and cooking tips, discuss cookbooks, talk cooking, and much more. Looking for the best flourless chocolate cake recipe? Ask other MacGourmet users in the General Recipe Exchange. Looking for recipes from that latest best-selling cookbook? Swap them in the Cookbook Recipe Exchange. Do you want to trade cooking tips, and talk about cooking in general? Try Cooking Talk. Finally, if you want to talk about and swap recipes from your favorite cooking TV programs, TV Recipe Exchange is the place to go.

This discussion forum is for YOU, the users. Support issues should still go to the Advenio support board, rather than to the Recipe Swap forums, but anything else recipe and cooking related can be posted to Recipe Swap. Enjoy!

There are a lot of changes being worked on for future versions of MacGourmet, some of which could be significant. I'm looking for a bunch of people to join a team that can be available to test things first, and give feedback on prototypes for potential changes. There are only a couple of requirements. The first is that members download, sign, and fax (866-830-9080) a simple one page NDA and not discuss future changes or prototypes publicly in any way. Not to be paranoid, but the recipe app field is surprisingly competitive. When MacGourmet was released, there were maybe two non-Filemaker recipe organizers for the Mac. Now there are, at last count, at least 12. Matching of features to be competitive will always be the norm, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery of course, but I'd rather see imitation of new features show up after a release, not before, hence the requirement.

The second requirement is that members must be completely comfortable backing up and restoring their databases. As with any test software, problems can happen.

If you are interested in becoming a member, first join the discussion boards if you haven't already, and then use the "Send Feedback" menu item in the MacGourmet Help menu to send me your user name, and a request to join the team. Members will be added to a private beta team discussion board where new features can be discussed. Space is limited, so don't wait too long.