You will note that the right sidebar now contains a new entry, namely supercook. I found it on a suggestion from J_ and decided to check it out. I was so impressed that I decided to contact them and ask for a banner so I could put it on my list of useful tools (yes, for free, as per the conditions).

What it does is that it searches through a database of recipes based on the ingredients you have and it does so very easily mentioning how many recipes you can currently make (with a clickable link) and possible ingredients you are missing. If you have those as well, you don’t need to type them in. Just click on them and in turn it will reveal new recipes.

This is a great replacement for my standard method of keeping a few staples in storage and improvise all meals from those. Not only is it possible to figure out which ingredients I miss, I can also change the focus slightly from staples to long lasting ingredients, say, on unrefrigerated ingredients, diary-free ingredients, and see what kind of recipes obtain from that.

In conclusion what this does is to turn the standard way of cooking on its head. Instead of looking for ingredients for recipes, you’ll be looking for recipes for ingredients and this is a much better strategy overall.

Originally posted 2009-05-26 03:42:58.