What's cooking?

Everyone loves a hearty meal, but making one is often a wearisome job. Whether you are tired of the dal-sabzi routine or simply dread the idea of spending hours in the kitchen, you need food, and that too, good food.

What’s the solution? The best solution calls for an attitudinal change, a change that makes cooking a delightful pursuit. And, this website www.cookitup.in comes across as a platform that helps bring about this change in you.

Created by Hindustan Unilever (HUL), the website is quite colourful and draws you in by giving you an access to over 1,000 recipes. You can also select your preference from a host of categories such as food for kiddies, regional dishes and recipes for microwave, among others. And, there’s a diet food section too. Simply browse through the vast variety on offer and plan something special.

The website’s homepage is packed with pictures of beaming women with the chef’s hat, something that doesn’t go well with its motto: “Making cooking a pure pleasure for women and ‘men’, who’d like to cook it up for their families, friends and for themselves!”

However, the site promises to put the lost joy back into cooking. If you really need a step-by-step direction, then check out the video recipes, where you can see how to make that perfect mango smoothie, or churn up a yummy mixed fruit papdi chaat. What’s really interesting is the feature called ‘What’s in your fridge’. Here, all you have to do is to enter the ingredients stashed away in your refrigerator, select the type of meal you want to make (lunch, between-meals snack etc.) and mention the meal type (vegetarian or non-vegetarian). Within seconds, you get a host of dishes to choose from. It’s simply perfect for one of those days when you just don’t know what to dish out, yet don’t want to fall back on your usual menu.

Also there’s a glossary, which has a list of ingredients with their Indian names. In case you have always wondered what on earth is ‘bay leaf’ or ‘semolina’, you can browse through the list and get your queries answered. As no cooking site is complete without those handy tips on how to keep cookies soft and how to skin a chicken, cookitup.in also does not disappoint you. You can spend some happy hours browsing the tips and tricks to better your culinary skills.

The website’s ‘Plan your weekly menu’ tool is really practical. Here you can plan out your menu for an entire week — a great feature for working men and women. The menu has everything planned out, right from breakfast to dinner. You can customise the menu by simply registering onto the site (free of cost). As a registered user, you can also change some of the recipes you don’t like according to your preference. With the ‘Your corner’ option, you can share your favourite recipes with other users and interact with them, share cooking tips and win gift hampers.

So, go ahead, get onto the site and have your friends and family eat out of your PC!