My Story

The chronicle of the journey from infertility, to miscarriage, to finally raising twin girls born in June 2012.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

I want an app

Maybe this app exists, maybe someone who wants to make some money will read this and create it, I don't know, but I want an app.

Specifically, an app where I can list everything that's in my kitchen and the app will come up with recipes to help me use up as many of those ingredients as possible.  My pantry is full of stuff.  Lentils, miso, coconut milk, just the most random stuff that I bought at some point thinking we would try something with it.  But I can't seem to figure out the skill of looking at a bunch of individual foods and figuring out how to make a meal out of them.

I want to go through my entire kitchen and make a list of everything I have.  Then I want to hit a button that says "plan my menu" and have it create a day or a weeks worth of recipes that uses up as many of those ingredients as is reasonable and a shopping list for the items I don't yet have to finish those recipes.

Each recipe should have 2 ingredient lists:  "You have" and "You still need"
Each recipe should also list out what cooking stuff you will need such as small sauce pan, 2 large bowls, etc.

Options should include:

  • Use up fresh produce / soon to expire food first
  • Cook for 1 person / 2 people / 3 people and so on
  • Time you want to eat (and it tells you what time you need to get started to eat at that time)
  • Enter diet restrictions (kosher, vegetarian, allergic to blah blah blah, etc)
  • Goal calorie count per day (for the dieters among us)

There should be a "how to" guide for instructions like "saute" or "braise".

Every day, you check off the recipes you made and it keeps track of what is left in your kitchen.  You can also manually enter when things are used up, like if you accidentally dump flour all over the floor, to keep your inventory up to date.

I can follow instructions.  If there's a list of what to do and when to do it and I can look up how to do it, I can cook (says the girl who has set a kitchen on fire with tater tots).  But I simply can not figure out how to make a meal from the food in my kitchen.  I'm faced with this failure at least 3 times a day!

Someone make this app, or point me to an app that exists that at least inventories then shows me how to use up the inventory of my kitchen.  I will pay money.  Seriously.  I'm sick of feeling hungry and stupid all day while food rots and expires.

8 comments:

  1. Alex, you have hit the nail on the head there! I have cupboards full of disparate things that I'm sure would be very happy together, given the right recipe. I make lists and read recipe books but it still doesn't work properly. Then, of course, you have the husband who "doesn't fancy" what you have planned and wants pizza instead. I wonder if that app exists?

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  2. Supercook.com is kind of like that :)

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  3. Ah....4 words that bring me out in a cold sweat "Mom, what's for dinner?"
    I'm a terrible impulse food shopper with delusions of grandeur when it come to cooking. I have a bulging pantry and 50 million recipe books, yet still haven't a frickin' clue what to make. I would welcome an app that helped me muddle along. Better yet, an app that summoned a little robot to do the actual cooking.

    S

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  4. I want this app too! It would be handy if it could remind me to take frozen food out of the freezer to thaw, too. I can't tell you how many times I've just gone and bought fresh hamburger or whatever because I don't have the time to thaw the food and make it too. (we have a small grocery store across the street from our house). If you could create this app you'd make a fortune!

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  5. Allrecipes.com might be something to try out.

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  6. There's something called, what's in the fridge or something similar to that, that does this. :) I hope that it helps.

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  7. http://myfridgefood.com/

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  8. Hey Alex :)

    Kind of off topic, and I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned/you are aware... But, as cute as the foam mat background is, at least on my computer, it is really difficult to read the blog now - the words hardly are visible. And I love reading your blog! Something to consider :)

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