#1 Food and Entertaining Brand Launches Mobile App in Time for Farmers Market Season

GREENDALE, Wis., Aug. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's #1 food and entertaining brand, Taste of Home, released its mobile application, just in time for summer harvests and farmers markets. The exciting new app, which was created with home cooks in mind, places thousands of beloved seasonal and holiday recipe collections from Taste of Home readers at the fingertips of home cooks and members of the mobile cooking community.

The Taste of Home app allows cooks to take Taste of Home recipes, relevant to the current season or holiday, wherever they go. Recipe collections range from slow cooker, potlucks and barbeques to holiday cookies and cupcakes with something new for every season, event and holiday. Users can browse, save favorites, email or even share their favorite seasonal recipes on Facebook.

Additionally, hundreds of everyday recipes are included, so no matter where they are, cooks will never be without inspiration. The mobile app will be updated regularly with Taste of Home's recipe collections to provide fresh content and help users usher in each new season or holiday with relevant recipes to make the most of local, seasonal ingredients. Similar to the Taste of Home publications and cookbooks, the recipes included in the app will reflect the evolving American palate, as it includes reader-generated recipes.

"With access to a vast collection of recipes and the ability to search for local, seasonal ingredients, the Taste of Home app is an asset in the kitchen, but particularly useful when you're on-the-go," said Catherine Cassidy, Editor in Chief of Taste of Home. "We created this app to inspire every level of home cook, who we celebrate in our books and publications. This is the perfect tool for those cooks who wish to use technology to embrace the current season or holiday offerings, and it conveniently arrived just in time for the farmers market season."

Taste of Home app features include:

What's in Season

The seasonality and sourcing of ingredients is inarguably more important today than ever to home cooks in America. Therefore, the Taste of Home app offers members of the mobile cooking community insight into which local ingredients are fresh at any moment. Users simply tap a map to select their state, and a list of fresh, seasonal ingredients available in the area is automatically populated. The View Recipes button within this section reveals recipes associated with the seasonal ingredients. This is an exceptionally brilliant asset for home cooks who wish to take advantage of the season's freshest produce in their area, particularly during the summer and autumn harvests.

Featured Recipes and Collections

Displayed within the Seasonal tab on the Taste of Home app are Featured Collection and Featured Recipe sections, providing relevant recipes for holiday-inspired or seasonal meals. The recipe collections appear in a Bookshelf element, which uses an intuitive selection process and provides indicators of which collections are newly available.

Recipe Showdown

Taste of Home editors will select seasonal recipes to contend against one another each week. The app users can vote for their favorite and then view the corresponding images and recipes. Home cooks are encouraged to weigh in on their favorite dish each week.

Recipe Options

The Taste of Home app allows users to easily find and follow recipes at the tap of a finger. Recipes in Summary view provide an image, brief description, important nutritional information (including calorie, fat, cholesterol, sodium, fiber, carbohydrate and protein counts) and rating of the recipe, provided by the Taste of Home web community. If the user chooses to learn more about the recipe, the Directions view includes servings, prep time, ingredients and easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions. Sharing options include adding the recipe to the user's Favorites, Email or Share with Facebook.

Facebook

The Taste of Home brand has a large and loyal Facebook following, and the app was designed to interact with that community seamlessly. In addition to sharing recipes via Facebook, Taste of Home cooks may also view the Taste of Home Fan page feed directly from the app to see what recipes other Taste of Home Fans "Like" and are posting comments about on Facebook.

Search

The Taste of Home app offers several methods for home cooks to sort and organize recipes. Users can browse the recipes based on ingredients they have on-hand in their pantries like chocolate or cranberries, or they can choose a more specific category option. The possible filters include: Course, Cooking Style, Cuisine or Holiday, which includes occasions such as 4th of July or Bridal Shower.

The Taste of Home mobile app is free to download to iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad devices at Apples iTunes store here. Android users can access the app here.

About Taste of Home

Taste of Home is the leading multi-platform producer of information on food, cooking and entertaining, serving home cooks engaging media that capture the joy and comfort received from food made with love. Taste of Home publishes three magazines (the flagship Taste of Home—America's largest food and entertaining magazine, with a circulation of 3.2 million—Healthy Cooking and Simple & Delicious); top-selling bookazines; newsstand specials; and popular cookbooks. Tasteofhome.com is a top destination for engaging audiences with kitchen-tested recipes, how-to techniques, cooking videos and lively community forums. Taste of Home is part of RDA (The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.). Learn more at tasteofhome.com. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

About Reader's Digest Association  

RDA is a global media and direct marketing company that educates, entertains and connects more than 144 million consumers around the world with products and services from trusted brands. With offices in 44 countries, the company reaches customers in 79 countries, publishes 90 magazines, including 50 editions of Reader's Digest, the world's largest-circulation magazine, operates 83 branded websites and sells nearly 40 million books, music and video products across the world each year. Further information about the company can be found at www.rda.com.

CONTACT:
Heidi Frank
Taste of Home
[email protected]
414.423.3112

SOURCE Taste of Home