7 ms·

Mealie – a self-hosted recipe manager and meal planner with a RestAPI back end

154 points by robinhoodexe 5y ago

zakki 5y ago
I tried the demo but I didn’t find the meal planner. I mean let say I want to plan the meal for a month by choosing available recipe for each family member. Is it on the plan?
- beret4breakfast 5y ago
  you need to login with the default un/pw at the top of the page
  - addandsubtract 5y ago
    I'm logged in, can see the recipes and other user created meal plan pages, but don't see any way to create my own.
  - zakki 5y ago
    You’re right. I see the planner after login and clicking the account icon. Thanks
blowski 5y ago
Why do meal and recipe planners pop up here so frequently?
- robinhoodexe 5y ago
  I think it's in the "hacker's" interest to optimize and improve the tedious chores like meal planning and grocery shopping.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    > grocery shopping. Is there a highly configurable app for sorting groceries? I’m currently using the pro version of copymethat [0], and it does a decent job of figuring out what aisles certain products belong to, and then let me sort those aisles however I want. But what I can’t do, is telling it that I don’t have "eggs & dairy" but instead those are two sections in different places (and still properly sorting). I also can’t save separate orders for the aisles, one REWE has aisles sorted X Y Z, the other might be X Z Y. And I also want it to know about some local brands. "Deit" (German no sugar soda) gets currently sorted into "Other" by default, while I want it to be in "Beverages" I even tried to make something like that myself, but besides my lack of knowledge of ML, I also had issues getting the proper data in a clean format, I ended up having to create a 100 item dataset which then (either in general or because I didn’t know what I was doing) was not enough to get good results. [0]: https://copymethat.com/ https://copymethat.com/
- vidyesh 5y ago
  I think its finally time to convert your 'family recipes' book to your own database to share with the family. And there aren't many good free solutions out there that are user-friendly and accessible everywhere easily. Desktop apps don't cut it anymore especially now that you want to share something in your family's chat group. People have also started gathering/modifying their own recipes from sites all over, so importing recipes is becoming crucial, especially with certain diets and a personal <insert diet> plan.
- ihateolives 5y ago
  It's a spicier version of ToDo app that you build to test out new stack. Sick of doing another todo app for learning experience, but this time with Rails+Vue instead of Symfony+React? Let's make a recipe site instead, this one has pictures! I know, I've built one myself when learning new stack. Way more fun than todo app.
- jka 5y ago
  A theory: recipes are algorithms (and datastructures), and every human programmer -- and all their friends and family -- have to eat. So there's a reasonable likelihood that programmers will (consciously or unconsciously) pattern match that and develop systems to assist. If I remember correctly, Doug Engelbart's Demo[1] included a feature to organize a shopping list. And the history of Elasticsearch[2] also began with recipes. [1] - https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/448/ https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/448/ [2] - https://www.elastic.co/about/history-of-elasticsearch https://www.elastic.co/about/history-of-elasticsearch
- roel_v 5y ago
  It's one of the programmer's rite of passage projects - along with todo apps, custom programming languages and text editors.
pratio 5y ago
I love it, I'm hosting a version for me at https://food.modispub.com/ https://food.modispub.com/ The recipe importer is great, I was using paprika but there's always the issue of sharing the recipe with your friends. Here, I can share the recipe where they don't even have to login. The UI is responsive on the phone and the collapsing steps feature is just great. I'm not using the shopping list and meal planner on a daily basis.
- MandieD 5y ago
  Nice recipes and photos! Is your config publicly available, as in, how you went from their docker-compose to a snazzy subdomain behind https? Or did you use SWAG for the reverse proxy?
  - pratio 5y ago
    Hey there, Yes, I'm using SWAG, it has the mealie proxy-conf available. I just renamed it to my domain and that's it. My config isn't public at the moment but I'm working towards it.
- rhamzeh 5y ago
  Upvoting just for having proper Toum at the top of the recents :) Kudos for knowing what Keshik is too! Also thanks for sharing - there are a bunch of cool recipes there.
  - pratio 5y ago
    Thanks, I've been able to focus on my cooking and I've fallen in love with the cuisine.
ilovefood 5y ago
This is so cool! Got it running locally and it has all the features that my girlfriend and I would need. We're usually doing this planning on paper and it's quite some time involvement to be fair. This can massively help. Thank you for the DB + API as well.
codingkev 5y ago
People who are interested in this may also be interested in Cooklang, a simple plain-text markdown format for recipes: https://cooklang.org/ https://cooklang.org/ -- doesn't get much easier than that.
- vladsanchez 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing, I never heard of Cooklang. It feels like a DSL (Domain Specific Language). I'll study their implementation to get started on a niche ETL markup language. Thanks again!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pkulak 5y ago
  Oh man, if this rendering was somehow integrated into Wiki.js, it would be a perfect storm. I may have to look into how to do that.
appfinderhero 5y ago
This is so amazing
_djo_ 5y ago
Not sure if it's intentional, probably not, but mealie is also the South African colloquial word for corn. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mealie https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mealie
- nkingsy 5y ago
  That’s funny I’ve only heard the term used to describe bad apples
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    A "mealy" apple is spelt differently https://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-what-makes-apples-95708 https://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-what-makes-apples-957... And pronounced not quite the same either as the usual Southern African word for "an ear of maize", or the products made therefrom, e.g. "meilie meal" (1) and "mieliepap" : corn porridge / grits (2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mielie_meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mielie_meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali#South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali#South_Africa
- technothrasher 5y ago
  I started reading a bunch of 19th century safari books recently and it took me a while to figure out what the heck they were talking about lugging about all those "mealies". It obviously was some kind of staple food, and it finally dawned on me they were dried ears of corn.
bschwindHN 5y ago
If one of these recipe apps integrates the diagrams from Cooking For Engineers, it'll be perfect. Example: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicken-Chili http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicke...
- jonititan 5y ago
  That's quite an interesting system. Is it a specific markup language being used to generate or store them?
  - bschwindHN 5y ago
    I read an interview where the website maintainer said they create the tables manually in HTML, but I’m not sure if that’s still the case. It would be cool to generate them from some sort of dependency list.
guerda 5y ago
What I really would like is a recommendation engine for me personally. Basically: This is what you could cook today (you haven't cooked this for a long time, but like it or so).
- roel_v 5y ago
  This was one of my main goals too (having/managing a set of known-good recipes and some way to be reminded of which ones we should come back to), and I tried many digital-only methods, but none stuck. For the past few years my strategy for this is offline-first. I have a bunch of recipes in 'enhanced Markdown' (Markdown with my own additions, very similar to Cooklang that was on here a few days ago, but that didn't exist when I started my software) and a script to make a pdf out of those recipes (a nice looking pdf, I bought some 'cookbook templates' off etsy or something similar). I print that and keep recipes in a binder, annotate on paper, and every now and then I go back and work my notes into the Markdown recipes then re-render and re-print the pdf. Then, when I do meal planning (usually in the weekend, depends on when we have a slot for grocery delivery) we (as a family) look through the table of contents of our family recipe book/binder and we usually eat (per week) 2 to 3 recipes from there, 1 or 2 from the 'we should try these' sources (printed recipes we come across, our newspaper has recipes daily, pinterest boards, youtube videos, ...) and 1 or 2 nights we have leftovers or takeout. This planning ties in with an offline-first grocery shopping/meal planning system that revolves around a cork board with laundry pegs to hold that weeks planning, which my children made/decorated when they were little.
- dag11 5y ago
  For a good chunk of the pandemic I used PlateJoy which did just this. You gave it preferences, and it told you what meals you were going to make that week and a consolidated shopping list. I enjoyed it a lot, but eventually my life got too busy to cook that often and I was growing slightly tired of the recipes, plus they got acquired so I don't know what their future holds. But maybe you'd find them valuable?
exitheone 5y ago
Another very similar alternative is https://docs.tandoor.dev https://docs.tandoor.dev I have been using it for the last months with family and friends and it works great as well.
- robinhoodexe 5y ago
  Tandoor also looks interesting. Could you take a quick look at mealie and make a comparison between the two?
  - zingplex 5y ago
    Not a head to head comparison, but having used many different recipe managers, Tandoor is the one I landed on. I think the ability to colocate ingredients alongside steps is very helpful for longer recipes. Demo recipe screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ZUeTQ8C.png https://i.imgur.com/ZUeTQ8C.png
anthropodie 5y ago
If you are looking for more selfhosted apps, checkout 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted 2. https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
synthos 5y ago
Is armhf / raspberry Pi support ever coming back?
- robinhoodexe 5y ago
  It seems a 64-bit OS is required for the Docker image, which gives me an excuse to upgrade my Pi model B to version 4.
cdubzzz 5y ago
Kcal[0] is my own project in this space. It’s still very rough (I don’t necessarily recommend using it, hah) but my spouse and I have been using it for a year or so now and it’s invaluable for our specific use case of a mostly plant-based diet but high protein needs because we are both very active. It’s a weird little niche (: [0] https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal
afita 5y ago
I recommend RecipeSage (https://recipesage.com/ https://recipesage.com/).
goda90 5y ago
I want to make a plug for Grocy[0] which has recipes and meal planning, but its core feature is inventory. It's a lot of work to get going, but if you keep a lot of non-perishable and frozen food it can help a lot with tracking what needs to be eaten and what you have. [0]https://grocy.info/ https://grocy.info/
- vladsanchez 5y ago
  Can I upvote you more!? =D Grocy is a wonderful project!
- darkwater 5y ago
  Damn! Now I discovered a new rabbit hole I want to enter, and I don't know if I really like it!
- arpit 5y ago
  Oh wow. So I recently built something similar for my own needs[0]. It's strictly mobile right now, but it serves my needs to get reminders on when things are about to go bad. Will have to dig into this app to see if I can integrate it [0] https://grocerytimer.app https://grocerytimer.app
mrmattyboy 5y ago
This is really awesome :D Looked for something like this a while ago and wasn't massively keen on what was already out there... One feature I immediately tried to find, though (and then searched for a github issue for it and couldn't initially see) was to be able to filter meals by ingredients. Not necessarily the 'fuzzy' search, but (similar to the include/exclude categories) have a drop-down list of ingredients for ingredient auto-completion and then select to add to a list of items. And then the same for adding some ingredients that are excluded (e.g. want to do something with flour, but have no eggs)
KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago
Is there a way to hook this up to a service to do shopping for me so I can do some kind of self-hosted hello fresh?
sto_hristo 5y ago
I use google sheets :D because of the flexibility it offers. It's accessible everywhere already, works good on mobile, so you don't have to haul laptops/tablets when cooking/shopping. If i need extra notes on some ingredient, i just use some adjacent cell. But above all - formulas. A lot of recipes lend themselves to calculations. Things like crepes (something superior to pancake) can be narrowed down to exact number of crepes you want. Same goes for ny cheesecake - dial the pan size and ingredients and baking time, temp are modified. Breads are basically fully formulaic so that is also covered.
pkulak 5y ago
I've been using (and even built!) recipe organizers and complex meal planners for about a decade now. Recently I decided, screw it, and just powered up a little self-hosted wiki. Now I have a section for all the meals that we like to make, that everyone likes to eat and I copy/paste them in. The epiphany was that 99% of the recipes I was storing were crap and I was wasting my time with a dedicated system. The wiki has about a dozen recipes now, with a new one getting added once a month, tops. It's really not so much work that I need a dedicated app just for recipes. Plus, wikis have really good change tracking, so I'm able to make little modifications without worrying about losing access to the original.
- unalkalkan 5y ago
  > Plus, wikis have really good change tracking, so I'm able to make little modifications without worrying about losing access to the original. It's a really good point for user experience scenarios that are close to mine. I like to import recipes from places but most of the time what i need would be adding personal notes or making touches to those recipes without losing the original. Not sure how important these are to most of the people tho
mikeocool 5y ago
When I started cooking I thought I needed something like this -- but what I found was that when keeping a recipe collection, over time I ended up with 10 different recipes for roasted brussels sprouts with different flavors mixed in and had slight variations on the basic technique. What I actually ended up wanting as I cooked more was to keep track of the basic technique I used when I made really good roasted brussels sprouts, along with a bunch of notes different variations or flavors to use with that technique, rather than a bunch of individual recipes. Personally, I've found switching to using something like Notion or Evernote as more of a cooking 'notebook' than a recipe collection -- where you are not forced into traditional recipe structure for each page -- has worked really well for keeping track of stuff like this.
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
These types of apps are cool and all, but there's just too much upkeep. I use a simple wiki where I can just cut and paste text. I don't need images.

154 points by robinhoodexe 5y ago

I tried the demo but I didn’t find the meal planner. I mean let say I want to plan the meal for a month by choosing available recipe for each family member. Is it on the plan?

beret4breakfast 5y ago
you need to login with the default un/pw at the top of the page
- addandsubtract 5y ago
  I'm logged in, can see the recipes and other user created meal plan pages, but don't see any way to create my own.
- zakki 5y ago
  You’re right. I see the planner after login and clicking the account icon. Thanks

blowski 5y ago

Why do meal and recipe planners pop up here so frequently?

robinhoodexe 5y ago
I think it's in the "hacker's" interest to optimize and improve the tedious chores like meal planning and grocery shopping.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  > grocery shopping. Is there a highly configurable app for sorting groceries? I’m currently using the pro version of copymethat [0], and it does a decent job of figuring out what aisles certain products belong to, and then let me sort those aisles however I want. But what I can’t do, is telling it that I don’t have "eggs & dairy" but instead those are two sections in different places (and still properly sorting). I also can’t save separate orders for the aisles, one REWE has aisles sorted X Y Z, the other might be X Z Y. And I also want it to know about some local brands. "Deit" (German no sugar soda) gets currently sorted into "Other" by default, while I want it to be in "Beverages" I even tried to make something like that myself, but besides my lack of knowledge of ML, I also had issues getting the proper data in a clean format, I ended up having to create a 100 item dataset which then (either in general or because I didn’t know what I was doing) was not enough to get good results. [0]: https://copymethat.com/ https://copymethat.com/
vidyesh 5y ago
I think its finally time to convert your 'family recipes' book to your own database to share with the family. And there aren't many good free solutions out there that are user-friendly and accessible everywhere easily. Desktop apps don't cut it anymore especially now that you want to share something in your family's chat group. People have also started gathering/modifying their own recipes from sites all over, so importing recipes is becoming crucial, especially with certain diets and a personal <insert diet> plan.
ihateolives 5y ago
It's a spicier version of ToDo app that you build to test out new stack. Sick of doing another todo app for learning experience, but this time with Rails+Vue instead of Symfony+React? Let's make a recipe site instead, this one has pictures! I know, I've built one myself when learning new stack. Way more fun than todo app.
jka 5y ago
A theory: recipes are algorithms (and datastructures), and every human programmer -- and all their friends and family -- have to eat. So there's a reasonable likelihood that programmers will (consciously or unconsciously) pattern match that and develop systems to assist. If I remember correctly, Doug Engelbart's Demo[1] included a feature to organize a shopping list. And the history of Elasticsearch[2] also began with recipes. [1] - https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/448/ https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/448/ [2] - https://www.elastic.co/about/history-of-elasticsearch https://www.elastic.co/about/history-of-elasticsearch
roel_v 5y ago
It's one of the programmer's rite of passage projects - along with todo apps, custom programming languages and text editors.

pratio 5y ago

I love it, I'm hosting a version for me at https://food.modispub.com/ https://food.modispub.com/ The recipe importer is great, I was using paprika but there's always the issue of sharing the recipe with your friends. Here, I can share the recipe where they don't even have to login. The UI is responsive on the phone and the collapsing steps feature is just great. I'm not using the shopping list and meal planner on a daily basis.

MandieD 5y ago
Nice recipes and photos! Is your config publicly available, as in, how you went from their docker-compose to a snazzy subdomain behind https? Or did you use SWAG for the reverse proxy?
- pratio 5y ago
  Hey there, Yes, I'm using SWAG, it has the mealie proxy-conf available. I just renamed it to my domain and that's it. My config isn't public at the moment but I'm working towards it.
rhamzeh 5y ago
Upvoting just for having proper Toum at the top of the recents :) Kudos for knowing what Keshik is too! Also thanks for sharing - there are a bunch of cool recipes there.
- pratio 5y ago
  Thanks, I've been able to focus on my cooking and I've fallen in love with the cuisine.

ilovefood 5y ago

This is so cool! Got it running locally and it has all the features that my girlfriend and I would need. We're usually doing this planning on paper and it's quite some time involvement to be fair. This can massively help. Thank you for the DB + API as well.

codingkev 5y ago

People who are interested in this may also be interested in Cooklang, a simple plain-text markdown format for recipes: https://cooklang.org/ https://cooklang.org/ -- doesn't get much easier than that.

vladsanchez 5y ago
Thanks for sharing, I never heard of Cooklang. It feels like a DSL (Domain Specific Language). I'll study their implementation to get started on a niche ETL markup language. Thanks again!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pkulak 5y ago
Oh man, if this rendering was somehow integrated into Wiki.js, it would be a perfect storm. I may have to look into how to do that.

appfinderhero 5y ago

This is so amazing

_djo_ 5y ago

Not sure if it's intentional, probably not, but mealie is also the South African colloquial word for corn. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mealie https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mealie

nkingsy 5y ago
That’s funny I’ve only heard the term used to describe bad apples
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  A "mealy" apple is spelt differently https://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-what-makes-apples-95708 https://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-what-makes-apples-957... And pronounced not quite the same either as the usual Southern African word for "an ear of maize", or the products made therefrom, e.g. "meilie meal" (1) and "mieliepap" : corn porridge / grits (2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mielie_meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mielie_meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali#South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugali#South_Africa
technothrasher 5y ago
I started reading a bunch of 19th century safari books recently and it took me a while to figure out what the heck they were talking about lugging about all those "mealies". It obviously was some kind of staple food, and it finally dawned on me they were dried ears of corn.

bschwindHN 5y ago

If one of these recipe apps integrates the diagrams from Cooking For Engineers, it'll be perfect. Example: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicken-Chili http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicke...

jonititan 5y ago
That's quite an interesting system. Is it a specific markup language being used to generate or store them?
- bschwindHN 5y ago
  I read an interview where the website maintainer said they create the tables manually in HTML, but I’m not sure if that’s still the case. It would be cool to generate them from some sort of dependency list.

guerda 5y ago

What I really would like is a recommendation engine for me personally. Basically: This is what you could cook today (you haven't cooked this for a long time, but like it or so).

roel_v 5y ago
This was one of my main goals too (having/managing a set of known-good recipes and some way to be reminded of which ones we should come back to), and I tried many digital-only methods, but none stuck. For the past few years my strategy for this is offline-first. I have a bunch of recipes in 'enhanced Markdown' (Markdown with my own additions, very similar to Cooklang that was on here a few days ago, but that didn't exist when I started my software) and a script to make a pdf out of those recipes (a nice looking pdf, I bought some 'cookbook templates' off etsy or something similar). I print that and keep recipes in a binder, annotate on paper, and every now and then I go back and work my notes into the Markdown recipes then re-render and re-print the pdf. Then, when I do meal planning (usually in the weekend, depends on when we have a slot for grocery delivery) we (as a family) look through the table of contents of our family recipe book/binder and we usually eat (per week) 2 to 3 recipes from there, 1 or 2 from the 'we should try these' sources (printed recipes we come across, our newspaper has recipes daily, pinterest boards, youtube videos, ...) and 1 or 2 nights we have leftovers or takeout. This planning ties in with an offline-first grocery shopping/meal planning system that revolves around a cork board with laundry pegs to hold that weeks planning, which my children made/decorated when they were little.
dag11 5y ago
For a good chunk of the pandemic I used PlateJoy which did just this. You gave it preferences, and it told you what meals you were going to make that week and a consolidated shopping list. I enjoyed it a lot, but eventually my life got too busy to cook that often and I was growing slightly tired of the recipes, plus they got acquired so I don't know what their future holds. But maybe you'd find them valuable?

exitheone 5y ago

Another very similar alternative is https://docs.tandoor.dev https://docs.tandoor.dev I have been using it for the last months with family and friends and it works great as well.

robinhoodexe 5y ago
Tandoor also looks interesting. Could you take a quick look at mealie and make a comparison between the two?
- zingplex 5y ago
  Not a head to head comparison, but having used many different recipe managers, Tandoor is the one I landed on. I think the ability to colocate ingredients alongside steps is very helpful for longer recipes. Demo recipe screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ZUeTQ8C.png https://i.imgur.com/ZUeTQ8C.png

anthropodie 5y ago

If you are looking for more selfhosted apps, checkout 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted 2. https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

synthos 5y ago

Is armhf / raspberry Pi support ever coming back?

robinhoodexe 5y ago
It seems a 64-bit OS is required for the Docker image, which gives me an excuse to upgrade my Pi model B to version 4.

cdubzzz 5y ago

Kcal[0] is my own project in this space. It’s still very rough (I don’t necessarily recommend using it, hah) but my spouse and I have been using it for a year or so now and it’s invaluable for our specific use case of a mostly plant-based diet but high protein needs because we are both very active. It’s a weird little niche (: [0] https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal

afita 5y ago

I recommend RecipeSage (https://recipesage.com/ https://recipesage.com/).

goda90 5y ago

I want to make a plug for Grocy[0] which has recipes and meal planning, but its core feature is inventory. It's a lot of work to get going, but if you keep a lot of non-perishable and frozen food it can help a lot with tracking what needs to be eaten and what you have. [0]https://grocy.info/ https://grocy.info/

vladsanchez 5y ago
Can I upvote you more!? =D Grocy is a wonderful project!
darkwater 5y ago
Damn! Now I discovered a new rabbit hole I want to enter, and I don't know if I really like it!
arpit 5y ago
Oh wow. So I recently built something similar for my own needs[0]. It's strictly mobile right now, but it serves my needs to get reminders on when things are about to go bad. Will have to dig into this app to see if I can integrate it [0] https://grocerytimer.app https://grocerytimer.app

mrmattyboy 5y ago

This is really awesome :D Looked for something like this a while ago and wasn't massively keen on what was already out there... One feature I immediately tried to find, though (and then searched for a github issue for it and couldn't initially see) was to be able to filter meals by ingredients. Not necessarily the 'fuzzy' search, but (similar to the include/exclude categories) have a drop-down list of ingredients for ingredient auto-completion and then select to add to a list of items. And then the same for adding some ingredients that are excluded (e.g. want to do something with flour, but have no eggs)

KaoruAoiShiho 5y ago

Is there a way to hook this up to a service to do shopping for me so I can do some kind of self-hosted hello fresh?

sto_hristo 5y ago

I use google sheets :D because of the flexibility it offers. It's accessible everywhere already, works good on mobile, so you don't have to haul laptops/tablets when cooking/shopping. If i need extra notes on some ingredient, i just use some adjacent cell. But above all - formulas. A lot of recipes lend themselves to calculations. Things like crepes (something superior to pancake) can be narrowed down to exact number of crepes you want. Same goes for ny cheesecake - dial the pan size and ingredients and baking time, temp are modified. Breads are basically fully formulaic so that is also covered.

pkulak 5y ago

I've been using (and even built!) recipe organizers and complex meal planners for about a decade now. Recently I decided, screw it, and just powered up a little self-hosted wiki. Now I have a section for all the meals that we like to make, that everyone likes to eat and I copy/paste them in. The epiphany was that 99% of the recipes I was storing were crap and I was wasting my time with a dedicated system. The wiki has about a dozen recipes now, with a new one getting added once a month, tops. It's really not so much work that I need a dedicated app just for recipes. Plus, wikis have really good change tracking, so I'm able to make little modifications without worrying about losing access to the original.

unalkalkan 5y ago
> Plus, wikis have really good change tracking, so I'm able to make little modifications without worrying about losing access to the original. It's a really good point for user experience scenarios that are close to mine. I like to import recipes from places but most of the time what i need would be adding personal notes or making touches to those recipes without losing the original. Not sure how important these are to most of the people tho

mikeocool 5y ago

When I started cooking I thought I needed something like this -- but what I found was that when keeping a recipe collection, over time I ended up with 10 different recipes for roasted brussels sprouts with different flavors mixed in and had slight variations on the basic technique. What I actually ended up wanting as I cooked more was to keep track of the basic technique I used when I made really good roasted brussels sprouts, along with a bunch of notes different variations or flavors to use with that technique, rather than a bunch of individual recipes. Personally, I've found switching to using something like Notion or Evernote as more of a cooking 'notebook' than a recipe collection -- where you are not forced into traditional recipe structure for each page -- has worked really well for keeping track of stuff like this.

lkxijlewlf 5y ago

These types of apps are cool and all, but there's just too much upkeep. I use a simple wiki where I can just cut and paste text. I don't need images.