Smart Cooking App Idea

Hey all,

Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, but I mainly do computer engineering related activities for my work and career.

I've come across many friends who love watching videos, but also want to figure out ways to cook the stuff they have in their fridge. I've personally learned how to make recipe generators / suggesters via AI models such as that similar to GPT, but I'm thinking about elevating the app such that it can generate tutorial videos as well that are more step-by-step to guide people. This is mostly tailored for beginners and not people who can improvise very well.

What do you guys think?

Feel free to provide any feedback, positive or negative. All is welcome.

Maybe I am not completely understanding but, if I list ingredients I have on-hand into Google, I generally get a list of recipes. Many are videos so they are basically step-by-step. Or is your idea something different?

Well, the more feedback the more I can refine my idea I guess, but I was initially just going to combine a variety of different functionalities such as nutritional parameters and such, but I'm basically thinking of a beefier version of mealime which doesn't come with videos for its recipes. It has a cool swipe functionality if you want to go step by step though.

Kathleen said:

Maybe I am not completely understanding but, if I list ingredients I have on-hand into Google, I generally get a list of recipes. Many are videos so they are basically step-by-step. Or is your idea something different?

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Whoops, I meant to reply to this and not have a separate comment. Sorry!

I find step-by-step photos most helpful. Videos can take longer than I have when cooking. I guess if it continued with verbal commands, it could be useful. One would need to be able to stop and start it without having to touch the phone, computer, or tablet.

Kathleen said:

I find step-by-step photos most helpful. Videos can take longer than I have when cooking. I guess if it continued with verbal commands, it could be useful. One would need to be able to stop and start it without having to touch the phone, computer, or tablet.

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You bring up a great point about the user interface; mealime has an interesting swipe interface where if you wave your hand (I think it detects via camera if you give it permissions) you can move on to next steps. Verbal commands also sound interesting, and yes, some people prefer photos for sure.

I could try to provide the two as options, although photo generation is a little easier than video generation.

What do you think?

I think it is a noble undertaking, and will take you a long while to generate content.

One issue that causes new cooks to struggle is to use items they have on-hand rather than need to buy everything which is used once or twice. Buying spices as well as ingredients is spendy. Something which builds on what is purchased would be so helpful.

Kathleen said:

Maybe I am not completely understanding but, if I list ingredients I have on-hand into Google, I generally get a list of recipes. Many are videos so they are basically step-by-step. Or is your idea something different?

Click to expand...

Interesting. How exactly do you do that? I've never heard of such wonderful deal. Please explain.

Kathleen said:

I think it is a noble undertaking, and will take you a long while to generate content.

One issue that causes new cooks to struggle is to use items they have on-hand rather than need to buy everything which is used once or twice. Buying spices as well as ingredients is spendy. Something which builds on what is purchased would be so helpful.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give it a try! Definitely going to start with pictures over video first. I really appreciate your input!

CharlieD said:

Interesting. How exactly do you do that? I've never heard of such wonderful deal. Please explain.

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I think you just sort of type in ingredients you have into Google URL or whatever browser you choose and then ask for some recipes. However, the more tailored it is, the less you can find what you want ie. if you include a specific calorie count and protein count and etc. as well as maybe other nutrition facts it might be hard. However, if you're willing to just go for general stuff you can probably get what you want.

CharlieD said:

Interesting. How exactly do you do that? I've never heard of such wonderful deal. Please explain.

Click to expand...

In Google, I will sometimes type what I have on-hand like this: Eggplant tomatoes peppers recipe. I hit return and it will list recipes that have those ingredients. I do it all of the time. It is usually pretty good at giving me options. But...

this last time was a search though. I had leftover fried chicken livers and was wondering what to do with them. I typed in "what can I do with Leftover fried chicken livers recipe. It returned all sorts of stupid things. I sifted through it and I FINALLY gave me a good recipe. Basically, remove any breading that easily falls off. Leave that which doesn't. Use a skillet. Put in butter and a bit of oil. When hot, add sliced onions and your livers. When the onion is just slightly browned on one side, give it a good stir and prepare your sandwich.

On my sandwich, I had mustard and mayo, some spring lettuce, plopped on the livers and onions, and done! I was skeptical whether it would be good, but it was amazing. I'll be making it again.

the thing to do with chicken liver is chopped liver. Yum.