Some people painstakingly copy, paste and edit recipes they find on websites. Some just bookmark them. Some use a service like Instapaper or Read it Later. Some email recipes to themselves. One handy method is using cc:to me. But when you email recipes to yourself, it can get to be a problem after a while, especially if you receive a lots of messages. As time passes, you either completely forget about the recipe, or you have problems finding it among your hundreds or even thousands of saved messages. KeepRecipes is an easy way to save all the recipes you find on websites, in cookbooks, or get from family and friends, all in one nice, neat virtual box. At the same time, it helps you discover new dishes that appeal to your tastes.

The site utilizes various tools to assist you. One very simple and handy one is the bookmarklet they provide, which works like the one from Instapaper, only for food. You drag it to your browser’s toolbar, and later when you find a recipe you want to save, you click the button, saving the ingredient list from any webpage to your KeepRecipes account. The bookmarklet can only auto-populate an ingredient list of a recipe due to copyright issues. However, you can highlight instructions before clicking the bookmarklet, and they will be saved in addition to the ingredient list.

Another method of adding recipes to KeepRecipes is by searching the site for content other users have added. If you’re in an exploring mood and spend some time browsing, it helps to create what the site terms as a “taste graph”, when you follow publications or other users whose recipes are to your liking. You can also synch all the recipes you have saved on the site to your iPhone with a free app which you can pull up later while your at the store shopping. If you’re following a recipe on your iPhone while cooking, there’s a feature that will keep your phone’s screen lit, so you don’t have to worry about getting food all over it when you’re hands are messy.

At this point in time, when wanting to add recipes from cookbooks, you’ll have to do it manually. But the startup is working on providing an easier way to to this that will, at the same time, also provide a source of revenue for the site. They plan to provide purchasable access to digital versions of paper cookbooks, and the content will be automatically and conveniently loaded into user recipe boxes for you. Included among those that will become available by reportedly Thanksgiving, are the Not Your Mother’s series and A. J. Rathbun’s cocktail book Dark Sprits, along with cookbooks from the A Baker’s Field Guideseries, just to name a few.

The startup will offer a digital version for a small fee for cookbooks users already own, after proof of ownership is provided via answering specific questions like, “on page 34, what is the third word?” Havard Common Press has already agreed to sell digital versions of their cookbooks using this method.

In April, KeepRecipes tried out the premium recipe model by selling a cookbook of Japan-inspired recipes. So far it has raise more than $5,000 for the Red Cross Japan earthquake and tsunami relief fund. They also later launched a cookbook with recipes from famous moms which benefits FEED, an organization which provides food for hungry school children. Until recently, only users who purchased a cookbook in this manner have had site access.

With startup recipe platforms like Foodily, Gojee and others all competing to be the site cooks think of when they’re heading to the kitchen, it’s probably a difficult time to be trying to attract home self-styled gourmets.

“There are a number of recipe startups and we’re aware of that,” says Phil Michaelson, CEO and co-founder of KeepRecipes, “but the way that we fit within the cooking process is very different — the idea that they can use the websites they’re already using, but then keep them with KeepRecipes. We’re helping them to use the recipes and to memorialize the occasion of what they cooked.”

(Via: Mashable)