RecipeZaar.com definitely impressed us here at Star Reviews and we really liked the site's community involvement approach. We think anyone who is a creative cook could easily get hooked on it.

• Shared recipes.
• Shared menus.
• Shared cookbooks.

If you just want a recipe, you might do better elsewhere. If, however, you want feedback on your own recipes and like the creative process of cooking and sharing ideas, this is the site for you.

Basic membership is free and allows you to participate in posting recipes, rating and reviewing. You do need to register by providing your email but it’s a painless process. The basic membership allows you to create a personalized “My Page” where you can store recipes, shopping lists, menus, interact with other members and post recipes.

Premium Members can have more than one cookbook and can keep private cookbooks just for organizing their recipes, or share them publicly with friends or the world. You also can customize your “My Page” to a greater degree.

While customer service seemed a bit lacking (as it does in almost all of the sites in this genre) the community involvement does seem to make up for it. Overall, we'd say that RecipeZaar.com is a must-see site for anyone interested in enhancing their cookbook and their cooking skills. RecipeZaar.com earns 5.0 Stars!

Simply Recipes is a personal blog and recipe site run by a woman who has gathered all her family recipes online to share with others. It is tastefully designed and navigation is a breeze. It is what the name implies – “simply recipes”. Each listing provides a photo, a list of ingredients and preparation instructions.

• A personal recipe blog turned website.
• Subscribe to receive recipes via email.

A place to blog about each recipe is provided and invited. Visitors can share their experiences when they try each recipe and discuss cooking ideas. The personal nature of the site makes it unique among the recipe sites we viewed. While you’re there you feel as if you’ve been invited into Elsie’s family kitchen with all the years of cooking experience behind it.

Although it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of some recipe sites we visited it’s a great site to have on hand when you’re looking for something yummy to cook. They earn 5.0 Stars!

The Epicurious website offers tons of information and a user-friendly recipe box that allows each member to store and share recipes, create a social networking page and rate and review recipes. If you like to chat with others about cooking and recipes, you will love this site.

• Weeknight dinner planner.
• Seasonal fare.

The recipes are searchable by type, food, or category and can be printed or emailed to a friend. Each recipe receives a one to four fork rating and you can add your rating or write a review. The list of ingredients is followed by preparation directions, and source information. Save it to your recipe box for future use.

Membership is free and you can opt out of receiving emails. The downside is the amount of advertising and pop ads you encounter as you are browsing. If you have a pop up blocker on your computer it’ll be less painful.  Customer service was also disappointing, with super-slow email support being the only option. If, however, you don't mind a do-it-yourself website experience the lack of support might not bother you.

All in all, even though we didn't like the ads and customer support was lacking, we found Epicurious to be a great recipe resource site and, best of all, it's free! Epicurious earns 4.5 Stars!

Group Recipes is a great website for the food lover. It has some very clever tools, such as the Recipe Robot that learns your tastes and preferences and can lead you toward recipes you will like. You can also search by a combination of ingredients or by food and taste preferences. This allows you to come up with a recipe you’ll like with the few ingredients you have in the house.

• Recipe robot.
• Recipe Stumbler – random search by personal preferences.
• Sort by a combination of ingredients or tastes.

GroupRecipes.com also offers a social networking venue and the ability to form groups with people you know. Membership is free and registration is simple. A two-minute taste test introduces you to the Recipe Robot so he can begin his work.

The downside of the site is that it does not have a recipe box feature like many other similar sites. You can print or email a recipe and bookmark it for future reference. The pages do not load as quickly as we would like and moving through the site is not always intuitive. Customer service is only reachable by email, although they were prompter in responding than some of the other recipe sites. This site definitely has some potential. We just hope they fine-tune their concept and improve the site navigation experience. Group Recipes gets 4.5 Stars!

My Recipes is a visually appealing site with enough recipes to keep most cooks happy. It is easy to browse and you can search by category, food, meal and more. Membership is free and anyone can browse the recipes, but registration is free and provides you with access to numerous tools so why not try it?

• I Love My Grill – an in depth section on outdoor cooking.
• Search by foods and combinations of ingredients.

We felt that the site's how-to videos offered helpful information and instruction on cooking techniques. New cooks should really find that helpful. It's like a cooking class on your computer.

While we didn’t find many unique features here, we felt this recipe site offered all the basics in a very professional way. It was a pleasure to visit. The only thing they could have improved was their non-existent customer service department. They earned 4.0 Stars!