Ask HN: What tech do you use for recipes and cooking? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What tech do you use for recipes and cooking?

2 pointsvinni26 comments

What apps, sites, search engines, blogs do you use for shopping lists, meal prep, managing recipes and general tech for cooking? For example, I use Paprika apps which can download recipes from anywhere, add items to shopping list. Any other apps you recommend?

View on HN

I use little tech for recipes - I learned to cook pre-internet so I just know how to cook the food I like. Occasionally, I'll google something new or to get a specific temperature/timing for something. But I started with cookbooks, and it worked fine.

I do keep a Trello card for shopping, though. It is so easy to just throw ingredients into a checklist as I need something, and have that list on my phone when I hit the store.

I use steel-forged utensils, pots, and pans, carved wood ladles, stone-fired earthenware, old French cookbooks, new Spanish cookbooks, paper notebooks to record my own recipes using fountain pens, an electric stove to cook with, a refrigerator, fresh water piped to my house, and my car to drive to the store to purchase local in-season produce.

iPad + Pencil + Apple Notes. There’s always a note that is shared and updated for the grocery list and any planned meals for the week. If I’m going to cook a dish for the first time I’ll probably just follow the source whatever it is closely but keep an eye out for things that I know are odd about my specific setup. For example if I need to sear something, I ignore the temp suggestions and just go for what I know works on my range and pans. If the recipe seems hard to follow or if the steps aren’t well organized for my time in the kitchen I’ll read over it a few times, then reorder all the steps to make it flow more easily. Then I’ll also take photos and doodle any relevant alterations. But mostly cooking is a low tech process for me.

I have a whole bookcase of cookbooks. When the bookcase starts to overflow, I weed it, so over time it’s fairly well curated. Do knives, stand mixer, and stove count as tech?

I save recipes to Pinboard.in and use appropriate tags for them. E.g. vegetarian, beef, chicken, side-dish, soup, etc. Simple and useful.

Just google search.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com