Hey guys. I’m a novice cook – not even a cook, really, just someone who every now and then tosses some food at a microwave and hopes for the best. But I’m trying to improve and learn more about how different foods work together.
However, often I have only a few useful items on hand, and I’m not sure what I can make with them. Times like this, I’ll usually order in. I’d rather be able to assemble something with the food I have rather than letting it go to waste and spending more money.
So is there a recipe database website where you can enter the ingredients you have, and the site will return results with any recipes that match your ingredients exactly? (Or perhaps will also mention if you’re missing only one or two items.)
Google “what’s in the fridge” for a number of websites that do exactly what you’re asking for. Give 'em a list of ingredients on hand, and they’ll give you a recipe.
SylverOne, that’s exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Many thanks!
hellpaso, thanks! I know you can find lots of great sites with tons of recipes spotlighting certain ingredients. It’s just frustrating when I look for recipes with stuff I have, only to discover that I lack ingredients X and Y. The site I was talking about would just include the stuff I have.
TruCelt – I’ll give that a try, but it seems likely to result in lots of recipes that include many more ingredients along with the ones I’m searching for. I’m curious about this:
By whom? 'Cause I just searched and the only reference to this term is this thread!
(Don’t you win something for coming up with a term that only has a single result?)
Here’s a basic assumption that I think a lot of people never consider: A recipe is a suggested starting point, not a fixed in stone monolith.
Say you’ve got mushrooms and asparagus. You Google fridge those and find a soup that sounds good. But wait, you don’t have shallots and chicken stock or the creme fraiche garnish.
So? Leave them out, puree some of the asparagus, add onion and celery and make a veggie broth, add that piece of leftover bacon, who knows; maybe you’ll come up with an amazing combo.
I’d say at least 50% of the time I look up a recipe for a last minute inspiration I don’t end up with all the ingredients. To quote Doug Shaftoe, “Display some adaptability”
Darn it! I came in to suggest this. I searched for something like this forever - literally even tried to convince some programmer friends of mine to just invent the damn thing - and finally found this site. I love it!
Thanks! But didja see my OP, with the not being a cook and having little experience and not very many ingredients? This is a combination that does not lend itself to flexibility. At least, not right now. Someday when I get more experience I’ll be able to experiment; however, I think first I need the basic tools before I can start improvising.
YES that’s perfect! Blessings on your house, Rrose Selavy! Why, I can apparently make 88 different recipes right now. Yay!
Any SuperCook users have some advice for me? I’m trying to enter ingredients from my kitchen and it won’t recognize “white sugar” or “granulated sugar” as entries. Just typing “sugar” creates a drop-down box that gives other options which I’m forced to pick from. It doesn’t know “sea salt” either.
Meanwhile, if I go through the lists of “you have all the ingredients for this recipe!” options that come up, it seems to count “sugar” as included. Does it have an assumption of “basic kitchens will have X, Y, and Z” list?
I’m a giant fan or www.recipezaar.com It lets you narrow recipes down by ingredient, category, course, and other qualifiers. I’ve searched such things like pasta recipes using lemon and chicken and gotten a lot of good results.
You can also save favorites in a “cookbook” as well as upload your own recipes to archive and share, and all recipes are rated so you can see which ones get the best reviews. It’s my first stop when I want to try to cook something new or get cooking ideas.
Rrose - thanks! I should have looked closer at the bottom for a FAQ link; normally I don’t expect that to be so tucked-away on a web page.
Also not fond of: I put “chicken breast” as an item I have. It keeps adding “chicken” as another ingredient, and then turns up recipes calling for whole chickens, chicken wings, etc. No. Please take my comment to heart - I only have chicken breasts, and cannot make bone-in chicken wing dishes with them in the suggested manner.
