Hello there! I’m thrilled to show you around the redesigned Cookie and Kate website. The previous website served us well for over ten years, and I hope this one sets us up for another decade of new Cookie and Kate recipes. I love sharing them with you. This project took over three years with many stops and starts, and I’m so glad it’s finally done. It’s a beauty!
When I was expecting our daughter, I reached out to the CultivateWP team thinking we could get this done before she arrived. Then, life threw us some serious curve balls including my brother’s life-threatening wakeboarding accident, and I had to hit pause. I owe a giant thank you to Duane and Bill for their patience, understanding and dedication to getting this right.
We officially launched the site last month and finalized a few features last week. I’ll walk you through the changes today. Here we go, starting with the new table of contents feature that you’ll see from time to time!
Explore the Home Page
I’m so excited to offer more options on the home page! You’ll find the latest recipes at the top, followed by seasonal highlights and other fun features. Check cookieandkate.com to see what’s new!
Did you know that you can expand the menu by hovering over All Recipes? There are so many ways to explore recipes on this website, but here’s a great starting point.
Filter the Recipes
Now, this is major. On every category page (bookmark this one), you’ll find recipe filters to narrow down the results. You can choose multiple selections from as many columns as you’d like.
Here are some examples of when these filters will come in handy:
- You have multiple dietary restrictions. (Choose from the Diet options.)
- You need a gluten-free dinner to serve to a guest. (Choose Course > Dinner and Diet > Gluten Free).
- You need an appetizer for a special Mother’s Day supper. (Choose Course > Appetizer and Season > Spring.)
- You want a dinner containing avocado and black beans. (Choose Course > Dinner and Ingredient > Avocado and Black beans.)
Tip: If you’re on your phone, click on the green “Search and Filter” button to expand these filtering options.
You can also Sort the recipes by Most Recent (default), Recently Updated and Most Popular (based on the number of comments). I’m always updating older recipes to make them the best they can be, so you might find something that catches your eye under Recently Updated.
Print a Recipe
This feature is the same as the original website, but I’m highlighting it in case you’re unaware. To save paper, hit the Jump to recipe link at the top of the post or scroll down to the recipe at your leisure.
Click the Print button to print only the recipe! Within the print feature, you can adjust the text size to suit your needs.
Send a Recipe to Your Inbox
Above each recipe, you’ll find the option to send a link to the post to your inbox. It’s quick and easy.
This feature is handy if you need to switch from your computer to your phone, or you want to pull up the recipe later at the grocery store, etc.
Save Recipes to Your Collection
Save your favorite Cookie and Kate recipes to your own account and pull them up on any device! This feature relies on a great tool called Slickstream. It’s a little more involved than the option to send a recipe to your inbox because you’ll need to create an account to use it.
You’ll find a Save button next to the Print button in the recipe cards. Click on the Save button to create an account or click the blue button to sign in with your Google account.
Then, you can save all of your favorite Cookie and Kate recipes for future reference. To access your saved recipes, click the Saved link in the menu at the top of the page.
If you used the old site’s recipe saving feature, you can access those recipes at Relish.com. Their tool is no longer updated, so I’ve moved to this one.
View Nutrition Information
Click on the Show Nutrition button to view a detailed nutrition breakdown for the recipe. This works the same as the old site, but it’s no longer glitchy. Hooray!
Browse Videos
If you love watching recipes come together, this is the place for you. Click on Videos in the top menu to find my latest recipe videos.
I’d love to hear from you.
Please let me know what you think in the comments. If there’s a way to make this website work better for you, or if something is not working as designed, please tell me! I’m always listening.
Thanks again to the team at CultivateWP for the beautiful website (shout-out to Bill, Duane and Richard), and to Meghan Savage Photography for the new photos (she’s the best wedding photographer if you’re in the market).
