Pinner Dinner: Using Pinterest to Plan Meals

Posted by KarenCooking on March 14, 2012 · 4 Comments 

I have been on fire with Pinterest . . . in terms of finding recipes, that is. As alluded to previously, I’m obsessed with searching for recipe ideas via the online bulletin board. Instead of scanning a printed recipe to determine a meal’s appeal, I can make an almost instantaneous decision by looking at an image.

(I joked with my husband about the number of dishes featuring cheese on one of the boards I follow. And then I realized almost every image pinned to my food idea board featured . . . cheese.)

Some recipes I’ve plucked from Pinterest (and tried) over the last few weeks:

Baked Spasagna

Spinach and Artichoke Baked Pasta

Bacon Cheeseburger Pasta Bake

They didn’t all consist of pasta and cheese:

Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili

Tortilla-Black Bean Casserole

Slow Cooker Parmesan Honey Pork Roast

I even made Mountain Dew cupcakes for my stepson’s birthday (homage to his beverage of choice).

I always contend the tastiest recipes are those shared by others.  There’s a whole lotta sharing going on in the Pinterest community.

If you’re using Pinterest, you may be aware that some legal experts question whether all that sharing constitutes copyright infringement.  Amy Lynn Andrews offers a broad range of perspectives at Blogging with Amy if you’re interested in learning more.

I believe the infringement question pertains more to artists and photographers whose work can easily be repinned without crediting the original source (or those artists may not have given permission for their work to be shared in the first place).  Ruth Suehle offers some thoughtful commentary on the topic and the Internet’s culture of sharing with this post via opensource.com.

Any of the recipes I have repinned so far have linked to the original source, which is probably not surprising since most people pinning food ideas want more than the image — they need the original source for the recipe itself.

Going so far as to delete Pinterest accounts seems premature, especially in light of the legal ambiguity.  But until the legal questions are resolved, you may find you’re more comfortable pinning from the original source (or at least making sure your repinned images link to the original).

Filed under Cooking-related, Food, Pasta, Recipes · Tagged with cheese, Cook, copyright, copyright infringement, Food, pasta, Pinterest, Pinterest legal, recipe, recipes