Is there an OS recipe builder online anywhere?

sketchingkari

I'm making (slow) progress with trying to keep the family to a budget and cutting down our spends on food, but i'm finding it really hard, I guess after more than a decade of bad spending, its going to take a while.

One of the things i've noticed is that I do several 'top up' shops during the week, to buy an item I have forgotten or we have run out of, this always ends up with us buying treats and extras we wouldnt have done otherwise, this needs to stop, but we are firmly fixed in our habits that we eat certain things and if we run out we have to replenish them.

What I would like to do is make meals from what we have in the house, rather than going to buy things to make a meal. I'm not the worst cook in the world, but i'm not very good. Give me a recipe and a trip to the shop to buy it all and i'm fine, but putting something together from what is already in the house, i'm utterly naff at

I have a ton of stuff in the freezer and the cupboards, it would be so helpful if there was an OS friendly recipe builder site online, so I could list the ingredients and see what I could make from them.

For example, i've just discovered a huge bag of frozen spinach taking up room in the freezer, I dont think i've ever used it? I also have creamed coconut and coconut milk in the cupboards that i've never used in my life, along with things like thai green curry paste and fish sauce (unopened) i'm sure they were destined for some exotic recipe I never got around to making and now I have no clue what to do with them.

Can anyone suggest a site like this? Or even better an app for my android? Or should I just take some time to read through the recipes on here and see what I can make from them?

I'll be honest, its all a bit overwhelming.

terra_ferma

This sounds like the system you have in mind, I love the idea but the site is fairly useless to me as it's USA and can't work with their measurements and also recipes using ingredients like tinned soup (what's the point of cooking yourself if you add something in a tin full of chemicals...).

Anyway here it is, maybe you'll like it more than I do
http://www.supercook.com/

Butterfly_Brain

The BBC good food site has a box that you can put an ingredient in to and lots of recipes come up. My favourite site though is the Australian Woman's weekly site which again has an ingredient search box.

Raksha

terra_ferma wrote: »

This sounds like the system you have in mind, I love the idea but the site is fairly useless to me as it's USA and can't work with their measurements and also recipes using ingredients like tinned soup (what's the point of cooking yourself if you add something in a tin full of chemicals...).

I don't know what tinned soup you are using, but everything on the planet is made of 'chemicals' many of which are not harmful. Besides, canning is up there with freezing for not requiring additional chemicals for preservation.

valentina

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/recipe-search.aspx
Use "ingredient search" in the middle of the page and you can list the ingredients you have - it gives you some ideas...
The problem I have is I do this and then find I need to buy even more stuff just to use up what I'm trying to get rid of!

terra_ferma

Raksha wrote: »

I don't know what tinned soup you are using, but everything on the planet is made of 'chemicals' many of which are not harmful. Besides, canning is up there with freezing for not requiring additional chemicals for preservation.

nitpicking is not going to detract from the basic argument, if you use the word additives it probably makes more sense, but the fact stands that tinned soup has stuff added to them (except maybe some premium brands, I've not checked all of them, but definitely the ones that people on this forum are more likely to use...).
No point in cooking from scratch and use tinned soup, IMHO.
Anyway, not here to pick fights, like some people, lucky them they've got the time ... just posting a link explaining that I don't fully endorse it.

terra_ferma

valentina wrote: »

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipes/recipe-search.aspx
Use "ingredient search" in the middle of the page and you can list the ingredients you have - it gives you some ideas...
The problem I have is I do this and then find I need to buy even more stuff just to use up what I'm trying to get rid of!

bookmarked this, glad to see there is a uk version now

rosie383

Terra ferma..... I sort of get where you are coming from especially with American recipes. You just have to look at the SC recipes from there, and most of them involve putting things from tins into the slow cooker! And I mean, almost everything is tinned or packet. I'm not averse to tinned stuff, just not everything tinned!
I also think those recipe sites are good, but I end up having to buy extra ingreds to make up a dish. It's ok if you are good at adapting what you have to fit a recipe. Does give more ideas of what to do with that lurking packet of whatever!

sonastin

I would suggest that you don't fret about the quality of your cooking so much and just get creative! By all means use these tools, plus all the recipe links on this site, to get some ideas of things to cook but don't restrict yourself to the letter of the recipe - if you are missing one of the ingredients, have a root round in your cupboards and engage brain to think about what you might be able to use in its place. It takes a bit of the confidence you seem to be lacking, and I am the first to admit that some of my own attempts have been generously described as "disasterous" (they were much worse than that!) but it is strangely liberating and you can learn a lot more about what works than slavishly following a recipe.

Obviously some ingredients are key, and you need to understand the chemistry of cooking to know how/if they can be substituted (e.g. rising agents in SR flour, baking powder, etc, binding properties of eggs, gluten in flour, etc) - this is one of the sources of me *getting it very wrong*

But others can be swapped around willey-nilley - Beef Bourginon with lamb anyone? Spinach in place of cabbage. Courgettes in place of mushrooms. Oregano instead of basil. Sure it'll change the flavour but on the whole it will still be edible. You just need to make a note of what works and what doesn't for future reference.

Mind you, my OH does liken me to the old woman in the Vicar of Dibley! But we've also had some great meals from "Oh I haven't got XXX in after all. S*d it, I'll use YYY instead and see how it goes".

rosie383

Great advice Sonastin. I think you are right. It's a case of having the courage to sub ingredients. Or knowing what you can safely leave out.

terra_ferma

sonastin wrote: »

I would suggest that you don't fret about the quality of your cooking so much and just get creative! By all means use these tools, plus all the recipe links on this site, to get some ideas of things to cook but don't restrict yourself to the letter of the recipe - if you are missing one of the ingredients, have a root round in your cupboards and engage brain to think about what you might be able to use in its place. It takes a bit of the confidence you seem to be lacking, and I am the first to admit that some of my own attempts have been generously described as "disasterous" (they were much worse than that!) but it is strangely liberating and you can learn a lot more about what works than slavishly following a recipe.

Obviously some ingredients are key, and you need to understand the chemistry of cooking to know how/if they can be substituted (e.g. rising agents in SR flour, baking powder, etc, binding properties of eggs, gluten in flour, etc) - this is one of the sources of me *getting it very wrong*

But others can be swapped around willey-nilley - Beef Bourginon with lamb anyone? Spinach in place of cabbage. Courgettes in place of mushrooms. Oregano instead of basil. Sure it'll change the flavour but on the whole it will still be edible. You just need to make a note of what works and what doesn't for future reference.

Mind you, my OH does liken me to the old woman in the Vicar of Dibley! But we've also had some great meals from "Oh I haven't got XXX in after all. S*d it, I'll use YYY instead and see how it goes".

I agree. Although I had to stop being too imaginative because OH was complaining that I could never make the favourite recipes taste the same twice lol lol