KISS MY APP: Cook my dinner

Can't cook? Join the club. After last week's celebrity inspiration, this week Kiss My App is looking at apps by celebrity chefs. Watch a video of Jamie Oliver cooking your favourite 20-minute meal – pukka! – or find out how Martha Stewart whips up a turkey – from prison! – or find out why almost 1.2 billion Indians like a good Sanjeev Kapoor recipe – zabardast!

20 Minute Meals – Jamie Oliver

This app for iPhone is one of the most expensive Kiss My App has reviewed at $9.99, but we hasten to add that it's also one of the best. When you consider what you might pay for a Jamie Oliver cookbook, this app starts to look like good value.

This gives you 55 recipes in the categories of: delicious soups, easy pasta, simple risottos, tasty stir fries, fast fish, classic meat, quick curries, super salads, vegetarian and gorgeous puds. Yes people, there are enough adjectives in this app to make you lose your appetite.

However, if you've got the stomach for some seriously purple prose, there are some really great recipes in here, perfect for the hard-working bachelor or bachelorette that doesn't have more than an hour scheduled into the diary for dinner.

Other features include over 90 minutes of video clips of Jamie doing awesome stuff like chopping an onion or using a mortar and pestle; a kitchen essentials and ingredients category so you have all the things you need; and a shopping list section.

Martha's Everyday Food

Last year, for the first time ever, Kiss My App cooked Christmas lunch. The turkey was perfectly browned on the outside and tender and tasty inside, the potatoes were golden and crunchy and the stuffing was the glue that held the whole meal together. By the end we were weeping with gratitude that domestic doyenne-cum-jailbird Martha Stewart was there to figuratively hold our hands and make everything just perfect.

She might have spent some time in the big house, but Martha doesn't use razors to slice up the garlic. Oh no – if there's one thing Martha knows how to do, it's cook. And if there's a chef whose advice is worth way more than $1.19, it's Martha. So this app, available through iTunes, is a great deal.

You can search through main ingredient, say for chicken, and the app gives you some great options, like chicken Provencale, peanut-crusted chicken breasts or lighter chicken enchiladas. This feature is great when you've got a particular ingredient in the fridge, but when you look in the pantry you find you're flat out of inspiration. You can also create numerous shopping lists. Apparently the app has a brilliant shop locator, too, but it doesn't appear to work in Australia.

Sanjeev Kapoor's Anytime Temptations

You might not have heard of this guy, but if you're living in India, you'd be in the minority. His cookery show on Indian TV has won the best cookery show award given by the Indian Television Academy every year since the award's inception in 2000, with the show broadcasting over 700 episodes in its 14-year run. And it's still running.

Having said that, this is a really odd app. The recipes aren't all Indian – they hail from all over the place – and represent mostly small dishes, like snacks, starters, soups and so on. Some of the best recipes on offer are the dips, chutneys and sauces in the back end.

At $2.49 this app doesn't represent the same kind of value as some of the others in this week's column, but if you're looking for something a bit different and eclectic, to say the least, it might be worth checking out.

If you have an application, for any device, that you'd like to suggest for review, please email us at kissmyapp@businessspectator.com.au . Also, be sure to check out Business Spectator's own free iPhone app at iTunes.

To read all Kiss My App reviews, click here.