Linking Lists Across Workbooks

I am trying to create a master price list, where the 1st file called MasterPriceList will list all of our ingredients and their prices.

It would look like this:
A_________B
ING______Price
1 Ing 1___$1.00
2 Ing 2___$1.50
3 Ing 3___$2.00
4 Ing 4___$3.00

My second workbook is is a template for when we need to formulate blends.
It looks something like this:
A______B______C_______D__
1 Ing 1__50%__$1.00__$0.50
2 Ing 3__50%__$2.00__$1.00

We want to pull the cost of the ingredient from the MasterPriceList and populate column C with that value.

I have tried copying and pasting a link. This works fine until I insert a row. Even If I make the link relative (='[MasterPriceList.xls]Sheet1'!$C1), it will only adjust if both worksheets are open at the same time. Since we will have over 200 pricing sheets, it would be impractical to have them all open every time we have to insert a new ingredient into the MasterPriceList workbook.

I have tried to use VLOOKUP but it will not work across workbooks and the same is true with Drop Down lists. I read a tutorial, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ex...995141033.aspx , which details how to create a drop down list across workbooks but when I come to the step of defining the validation list, I get a message saying that it can't be done across workbooks.