Forum

I know others have asked for this but... We need a way to filter out recipes we don't want to see in the results. Someone suggested adding a category of "recipes I don't want" but that means, if you implement this, every time I search I need to remember to choose this option. It would be better if the "I don't want to see this" category were chosen as setting that applies to all searches unless you turn it off. I know you work by book and blog and mag, but for us heavy users, that's too general.  Or find another way :)

have you tried using boolean search terms and making your search more specific...with over 1.7 million recipes in the data base I'm learning to be really specific in my searching .. sometimes works sometimes doesn't!

debkellie: could you share some examples?

I can give a few examples. I volunteered to bring a dessert that did not contain chocolate for a party at work earlier this month. I wanted it to be based on seasonal fruit, and to be finger-food (bars, cookies, or miniature pastries). I used the filters for 1) recipe type: bars, brownies and 2) ingredients: fruit. Then I added "-chocolate" in the search box to exclude chocolate. This retrieved 42 recipes, which I scrolled down. If necessary, I would have chosen a more specific fruit in the ingredient filter. I would have also added "-Christmas" and "-cocoa" in the search box to exclude those recipes. I planned to limit by the cookies and pies/pastries recipe types separately if I didn't find anything in the bars recipe type. I made the Strawberry jam crumble bars from Bake from Scratch, which all of my coworkers enjoyed. 

For my regular meal planning, I begin with the main dish based on the protein. I use the filters to select the most specific cut of my meat or type of fish. So I add "chicken breasts" in the search box, the ingredients filter for "chicken pieces", and the course filter for "main course". This retrieves 189 recipes. I then consider: 1) do I want to limit further by recipe type: grilling, curry, pasta, stews, stir fries; 2) do I want to add another ingredient; 3) do I want to limit by region or ethnicity? For the accompanying side dishes, I filter for course: side dish and the region or ethnicity of my main dish. (Sometimes I limit to the continent, sometimes I use the more specific ethnicity, depending on how many results I retrieve.) I often limit to nutrition: vegetarian for my sides (never vegan; I like cheese, butter, & cream). I may specify an ingredient in the search box (based on what is seasonal or on sale at my local grocery).

I have also bookmarked some of my cookbooks as "favorites"; occasionally I limit my search to those books. Then I proceed as specified above.

Thanks you so much lkgrover! I ever considered using "-" sign in search, but should have. Your recommendations will definitely help me!

Don't forget you can also change the filters in the right column to an exclude rather than include by clicking the + on the selection to change it to a -. So for example if you want to exclude Christmas recipes from your cookies search and also exclude chocolate you would select Cookies under Recipe types / Baking and Christmas under Occasion / Holidays and Chocolate under Ingredients / Baking ingredients. Then click the + on Christmas and Chocolate to make those excluded. There are 5,508 online recipes in the Library that fit those criteria.

This is the Help section on excluding ingredients or categories.

Vickster - boolean operators are and, or, not..

So when I want to search for things I just create a string .. for example:

celeriac and watercress and chicken breasts -soup .. delivers me 5 recipes.. none of which are soups (-soup) - unfortunately it includes any mention of "breast" .. so one of those recipes required veal breasts ;-)

The specific ingredients approach works better for me than the categorised ingredients in the EYB pre-ordained filters

I've also found using the  word "and" is better than using the + sign.. no idea why

Thanks Debkellie. That is very helpful!

debkellie - if you select "Chicken" from ingredient filters (Ingredients / Meat, poultry & game / Chicken) when doing that search then you would not see veal.

I'd like to have a feature in searching where I can select multiple courses, or multiple other filter options. For example, I wanted to search for a sweet potato recipe. I wanted to look in main dishes and side dishes. Main dishes were over 200 results, but when I selected side dishes as well, I got 1 result instead of giving me both main dish and side dish options.

LeilaD - you can apply your Bookmarks as filters. But you need to do it in your Bookshelf. So select My Bookshelf Recipes, enter the book title in the search box then select your Bookmark.

I'm happy to see that I can use the minus (-) to limit an ingredient, but I'd like the ability to set a permenent filter.  For example, I need to permanently limit kidney beans but don't want to add that every time and don't want to limit other types of beans.  Thanks!