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I have semi-automated cooking for the week ahead. We recently started cooking meals for the week ahead on Sundays and then freezing them. The aim was to give u
by DoubleGlazing 8y ago
I have semi-automated cooking for the week ahead.
We recently started cooking meals for the week ahead on Sundays and then freezing them. The aim was to give us more time with the kids and to cut down on housework.
To save time on the Sunday cooking session I have cobbled together a very clunky, and I mean VERY clunky semi-automated cooking system. It comprises a Raspberry PI which controls a couple of WiFi mains switches attached to the induction hob and the slow cooker. A wooden spoon attached to a 360 degree servo motor hangs above the pot on the hob and can be activated by the Pi for stirring. Initially I tried to use one of those cheap three-legged novelty vibrating pot stirrers, but that didn't work out. Thermocouples feed back to the Pi to help control cooking.
The whole thing is controlled by a messy Python script and 'recipes' are JSON based text files. They just define how long each device should stay on, a max temp to turn them off and how often they should be stirred. I get an email when cooking is done.
I plan to add some functionality over the summer to tip in ingredients as needed. The biggest issue is that it doesn't handle chunky food, it works for soups, chili sauce, pasta sauce etc. I'd love to figure out a way to fry and separate mince as you would with a spatula..
- sushid 8y agoThat sounds amazingly complex and cool at the same time. Have you looked into sous vide machines or pressure cookers? Those two are the items I use the most to get precisely cooked meals done in batches. I've found that a lot of meals done via the slow cooker tend to taste the same because of the consistently and the type of ingredients typically involved in them.
- ghaff 8y agoThe problem with slow cookers is that the chop a bunch of stuff up, toss them in the slow cooker, and turn it on approach doesn't work all that well. You generally want to brown things etc.--and then you're not gaining that much. But, then, I'm mostly not a huge fan of stews in general.
- krrrh 8y agoNot GP, but he was saying pressure cooker over slow cooker. I got an instant pot about 6 months ago and I probably use it as much as my stovetop now. Even if you're pressure cooking a stew (it makes Indian cooking actually achievable) you can brown the meat in the same pot. While it does double as a slow cooker, I have never actually used that functionality.
- noxToken 8y agoI think there are three problems with most slow cooker recipes. 1.) My hi/low setting probably doesn't match your hi/low setting. From the get go, we're cooking the same meal at two different temperatures. 2.) A lot of recipes seem to call for low setting for 8 hours. This works well for a lot of people with a standard American work day, since a stew/soup will stay above safe warming temperature in a nearly sealed pot. However, the cook times are too long. Thawed chicken for 8 hours on low almost never turns out with the right texture. In this case, it's convenience > taste. 3.) The flavor is cooked out of the ingredients, and/or there isn't enough seasoning or too many ingredients. When you get the seasoning right, too long of a cook time can dull the flavor. When there isn't enough seasoning, then your meal is bland from the start. When there are too many herbs and spices, you get a mish-mash of flavors that are all competing for attention. There was an article on here a long while ago that categorized foods into low and high amplitude flavors. Something sharply distinctive was high amplitude (think nacho cheese Doritos), while a low amplitude food had weak, hard to discern flavors (plain grits). Too many different ingredients can lead to low amplitude foods, and when I see an ingredient list with 15 different herbs and spices, I almost always steer clear.
- ghaff 8y agoRozanne Gold made something of a career out of cookbooks using short, simple ingredient lists and mostly easy prep. I don't care as much any longer as I mostly work from home, but my work night preference--as opposed to slow cookers--has always tended toward the fast, easy saute. Especially with so many pre-prepped vegetables etc. in the grocery store these days, it seems like the best option for my tastes.
- sjg007 8y agoOr a crock pot.
- Operyl 8y agoCrock pots and slow cookers are essentially the same, as far as I know. The only difference I can remember is that one is a metal bowl, and the other is a ceramic bowl.
- ska 8y agoAbsolutely, pretty much anything I could think of doing in a slow cooker would be better off done in a pressure cooker, for about the same time investment from me. Sous-vide much more specialized, but I find super useful not for saving time, per say, but being more flexible about it. It's great when you are doing other things at the same time as cooking dinner, i.e. - leave the steaks another 30 min while I do this chore? no problem....
- wodenokoto 8y agoPlease do post pictures and videos. It sounds like a real life rube goldberg machine!
- King-Aaron 8y ago> It sounds like a real life rube goldberg machine! It has a very "Wallace and Gromit" sounding vibe to me!
- kbutler 8y agoWe're /inventing/, Grommie!
- samatman 8y agoI'd consider retrofitting a Kitchen-Aide or other stand mixer. The epicyclic rotation should give you pretty good dispersion.
- narrator 8y agoI did this with the healthiest packaged food I could get on Amazon (quest makes pretty good stuff) and doing subscribe and save to get a 15% discount + 5% cash back on the Amazon visa card. It comes every month and I just eat all that.
- xor1 8y agoDo you have any links to what you buy? I'd like to try some.
- elvisds 8y agoA friend is getting such a system to production for Indian recipes with Mechnical Chef [1] The demo looks incredibly cool [2] [1] http://www.mechanicalchef.com/ http://www.mechanicalchef.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBB0ZaN1paE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBB0ZaN1paE
- scarejunba 8y agoI'm not able to seek on the video he has embedded (using Chrome on Android here). I'd probably have looked for more than 10 s if I could have.
- a_rahmanshah 8y agoHere you go - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPooW6tqQts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPooW6tqQts
- scarejunba 8y agoThank you.
- aws_ls 8y agoYour friend is a genius! Any idea, how much is it going to cost? And will they plan to sell it in India?
- mosselman 8y agoBuilding a clunky device that imitates human actions is hardly 'genius'. Resourceful maybe. An electrical coffee grinder isn't a normal coffee grinder with some rotating lever attached to it. An electrical coffee grinder has small motors attached to the grinder mechanism in order to make it move. This contraption is fun to build I am sure, but not 'genius'. Much closer to genius is the thermomix: https://thermomix.com/ https://thermomix.com/
- fipple 8y ago
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoYou don't have this pushed to a repo somewhere, do you? It would be great to be able to see how you do some of this.
- hx2a 8y agoI'd really like to see a YouTube demonstration & explanation. Seriously, if you can make a Raspberry Pi and Python code cook for you, you will be my hero.
- rorykoehler 8y agoI just bought an electric slow cooker. I leave it on for 12-24 hours depending. Does the same job without the complexity.
- klekih 8y agoAnd how much time did you spend automating those things? Is it worth? i.e Is the time spent on cooking minus time spent on automating a positive number?
- aws_ls 8y ago(Not OP) I think, it is worth a lot, just for the fact, that if you are the lazy partner/spouse in the house. Then you can make things easier for the one that does the bulk of the chores.
- andrewstuart2 8y agoOne of these activities builds upon highly valuable skills and, when done, leaves more time to build upon said skills (or do anything else). The other does not.
- slg 8y agoYour comment reminds me of my favorite Douglas Adams quote: "I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand." Sometimes it simply isn't about net time saved.
- mosselman 8y agoYou might find investing into a Thermomix a good idea: https://thermomix.com/ https://thermomix.com/
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoI imagine the reason you're being downvoted is because you've posted this link multiple times without explaining your connection (if any) with this company. At the moment you look like a spammer.
- fredoliveira 8y agoUnrelated to GP, or to the company that makes those machines. But I do have one and it's pretty decent (but also loud on high speed settings). Saves us a bit of trouble here at home by automating some common things in cooking. Most of the time we use it for soups and batters.
- mosselman 8y agoFair point. I dont have a connection. I just found it relevant in both branches of the discussion. In fact, I’d never buy one. But I would buy one before I started automating stirring food in pots.
- hangonhn 8y agoYour tone sounds mildly apologetic but what you've cooked up (pun intended) is overflowing with pure hacker audacity and just mad nerdiness. You are a hero!
- joeyjojo 8y agoAny chance you could share your recipes?
- speg 8y agoI want to try this when my wife goes back to work (Sunday meal prep, not the robots). Are you following any resources or just winging it? Ideally a single source that includes all the materials needed for the week and then recipes to make the dinners. Preferably with multiple weeks to rotate through.
- gricardo99 8y agoplease add some photos or video of your system in action. It sounds super cool. Especially the "very clunky" nature of it would inspire people to take on pretty daunting projects like this and get a "MVP" up and running. Just your description is inspiring. Thank you.
- sAbakumoff 8y agoI'm just wondering, how do you spend this time you saved by using this terribly sounding device?