A little of both. As a mom you get used to doing a mental inventory of what you have and what you need to create meals for everyone while trying to reduce waste
Yes
Finally an answer I can relate to.
There’s a store like half a block from my apartment, so I just treat it like an external pantry.
Yeah, it’s like a 10 minute walk to the next store. Less than 5 mins if you catch the tram. Going shopping is just a 20-30mins round-trip.
I’m an hour rounder to the store so I definitely don’t want to forget anything.
I make a list, forget the list, and end up winging it.
this is the way. write a list, put it on the table while youre getting ready, get to the store, check your pockets, say FUCK in the store. do your best from there.
I make my list on my phone for exactly this reason.
I forget my phone, which had the list. Or worse:
I have my phone, so I have my list, go to pay: Forgot wallet. 😩
I have my wallet when I have my phone. I use contactless payment 95% of the time with my phone.
Oof, that’s rough. For me, for whatever reason, I’m very consistent any time I leave my house: Phone, wallet, keys.
Grocery list and I take a pen along and mark everything off when it goes into the cart.
Yeah, I’m old.
I’d love to have a database with all my recipes with ingredients and add them at a click of the button. The problem is I have a fairly well stocked kitchen and I still need to go through the list anyway to make sure I’m not buying anything I already have. So having a computerized system really doesn’t save me any time.
I keep a list that is shared/synced with my s/o via a self-hosted KitchenOwl instance. I’ve been slowly porting my recipes over to it as well. Overall very satisfied and it works well.
We use a blackboard and chalk in the kitchen and take a photo of it before we go shopping.
I’m ashamed to admit this but we have a whatsapp group with just me and SO, we list the items there
Yep, this method works really well in a busy schedule.
My spouse and I use iOS so we share lists that we dictate to: “add onions to the grocery list” or “add vitamin c to the pharmacy list” is pretty adhd friendly, and updated live so if one is shopping, that’s inevitably when we remember something and the other one of us can update the list without texting.
I like kitchen owl, but have to use iOS for various reasons, and it’s pretty low friction, even autoorganizing the list by section of store to make it easier when roaming the aisles.
All our recipes are in print or our heads at this point so we don’t need a list-from-recipe feature.
One thing I wish one of the grocery list apps could do was to store recipes, then you choose which recipes you want that day/week/month whenever you go shopping, it’s smart enough to know if 3 recipes need flour only put flour on once, then go through and mark ingredients you already have.
Like I can put in a recipe for penne alla vodka or fettuccine alfrado then if I select penne alla vodka it adds : Penne pasta Vodka sauce Heavy cream Mozzarella cheese Parmesan cheese Sausage
Etc to the list. Then I say actually I already have heavy cream and mark it as not needed.
That seems like a perfectly reasonable feature list!
Do you know of anything that does this? I’m kinda tempted to sketch out a plan to do it myself but I already have a totally different project I’m working on and struggling with.
I use Paprika on iOS, which does this.
- import a recipe from any URL - including source, photos, nutritional info
- keeps a database of recipes
- create meals or calendars of recipes
- generate a categorized grocery list
I have a folder full of recipe files from before I got that, but haven’t really looked yet for anyway to import those
Just looked into this, there is a android version and seems to be similar to what I want. Thanks for the recommendation. Can you tell me what the advantage of paying for it is?
I don’t know - I found it well done and suited my needs so I paid for it.
I don’t know of anything like that, but it seems like parsing out multiple different formats for recipe ingredient lists would be one of the major obstacles to consistency and reliability.
I don’t know much about digital recipes, other than the crap that is various websites with their ingredient list obfuscation game.
Yeah but I’m not even asking for that. I literally want a “start recipe” button… I enter each ingredient in separate text boxes… Optional “instruction” box to paste the instructions… Later I decide “on Tuesday let’s have home made pizza, then on Wednesday we’ll do beef tips and noodles” and I click a check box or type in recipe name, system sees ingredients I previously entered for that recipe and adds it to grocery list.
No web scrapping or parsing needed. I will enter the ingredients for each recipe but I only want to enter it once
Oh yeah, I get it. On iOS I use a simple database app called Collections that I really like, I use it for mileage tracking and certain kinds of journaling or lists that need extra features like a relational key or lookups or sketch or calculation fields etc. When I can’t find an app that does what I want.
Basically a simple roll-yer-own approach. I haven’t looked into sharing the data dynamically, though. I think Collections is iOS only, probably similar apps galore on android. https://collectionsdb.com/
We do exactly the same but with Alexa
Hm, I feel bad enough trying to trust that apple is respecting our privacy in iCloud sync, it’s a stretch, but data processed by an aggressive retailer about my shopping, don’t think I could do it.
I forgot I was on lemmy for 30 seconds, thank you
And just like that, I found a replacement for bring…
Now to convince the wife. Any QoL improvements?
When I first deployed to my VPS the iOS client would keep auto updating and then refusing to connect to the older version deployed (android client had no issues) - they were pushing updates often. I setup a chron job to pull the latest docker image and restart the containers, no more problems. Dunno if that is still necessary or not.
Can confirm it isn’t, I was also a user during that period, and still am, I haven’t had to update my docker image in a fair while.
Same, but we use OneNote.
Christ, why is everything a fucking docker image these days?
What’s wrong with Docker? Spinning up KitchenOwl was as easy as just copying and pasting the Docker Compose file.
It’s a waste of disk space, fucks up iptables, doesn’t isolate UID/GID, doesn’t reap orphaned processes, and just overall adds another layer complexity to what could just be a simple package installation.
Wing it
I did worse than wing it actually… half of the groceries I got over the past few weeks were from Too Good To Go, so near-expired food that the grocery store winged-it for me💀
Depending on the store TGTT bags can be amazing or… not so much. One store near me will always include fresh fruit, veg, meats, rolls, cans… another will just hand over a bag with like ten kilos of sliced ham in it.
TGTT with a freezer is a game-changer, though.
Maybe I should check out their grocery options. I’ve mostly been using Too Good to Go for like a pizza @ $4.
I usually do our food shop online, however I plan the meals and write down everything we need for the week. If I’m going to the shop then I’ll write the list down in the order I’ll move through the shop so that i can just work my way down through the list.
Same.
I have a spreadsheet of every meal I’ve cooked for the last three years, with a meals look-up tab that allows me to filter by cuisine, protein, carb, and then also pulls in the date from the planning sheet so I can see how long it is since I last cooked that meal. Makes weekly meal planning a lot easier, eg: I want a chicken and rice dish that I haven’t cooked for at least two months, then a vegetarian pasta dish for next day. No problem!
List
I start with the “buy again” list on the grocery website.
My family always made a very careful list which was followed when grocery shopping.
Now that I do my own shopping I also make a list, on my phone though. I note down only the very essentials and leave most things open to what I can find whenever I get to shop. For example, I really need eggs and deodorant so I write that, but if I need veg I don’t list the type of veg, I just note “veg on special” and make my choice on the spot.
Plan meals for a week. Make list of what’s needed. Shop once a week. Rarely eat out. Never delivery.
like 80% of what I need is repetitive. if I make a list, it’s because I’m making a recipe.
I don’t understand how that would work, everything runs out at different rates. Something like eggs, sure, just get a dozen every week. But things like mayo, laundry detergent, tofu, cheese, etc., these all need to be re-bought at very different random times.
For me it worked with a family as well, given that I do all the cooking.
A big part of it is I buy in bulk when possible. Not only do I have a large stock of laundry detergent but I have a chest freezer with large stock of meat.
- I don’t need a list for Costco runs because it’s every few months and the things I’m low on are top of mind. Also, I try to buy ahead and keep them in stock so no big deal if I miss something and have to go back a couple months later.
- what I buy at the grocery is much smaller and dominated by things I buy every week
Eggs, milk, bread, produce every week. Meat if it’s not in the chest freezer. Double it if a kid is home from college
Mayo is from Costco. Normal size, Believe it or not, they’re the only ones I know who carry kewpie mayo. So I’ll get it and an extra to keep in stock, and worry about it next Costco run. If I forget, no big deal, we can go without mayo or I can get something on next grocery run
I do use a recipe manager, which can import recipes from any URL, and can generate a categorized grocery list. If I want a recipe, it’s probably there, so I’ll look at that list
It works because I’m only one person. Not buying for a full family. I’m definitely not going through giant packs of cheese and laundry detergent at random times.
I’m also one person but if I don’t keep a list I’ll end up with no milk and 10 boxes of cereal (real example)
Yeah I would just never do that. Like I just remember that I have 2 boxes at home but need milk.
There’s the rub, I straight up can’t trust my memory like that, I might remember needing to do something but then forget that I already did it.
With that milk example, I’ll remember that I need more milk, get the milk, go home, open the fridge, see milk already there, remember that I already got more milk a couple days ago, put new-new milk next to old-new milk, and legit fucking do it again a couple days from now leaving me with three jugs of milk. Memory is borked I guess.
Fun fact: I have so, so much tooth floss and white rice rn due to this fun phenomenon
I have 3 bottles of shampoo under my sink, so I can relate.
Exactly. I’m not sure what op is misunderstanding, but cereal is another perfect example. You don’t buy cereal on every shopping trip, so when you go shopping you need to know if you need to get cereal on that trip
I don’t see how that answers the scenario i posed, but hey do what works for you
I make a menu that includes two breakfasts (6 and 9 am) a lunch (11) and six dinners. I account for what i have and list the rest of the needs. Then i go shopping and add two treats(for snacking or dessert) and two beverages (oj, pop, prebrewed coffee, rtc) and a freezer pizza.
If i have to go back that week for anything, i fucked up.
two breakfasts
I have a spouse and child. Winging it simply would not fly.
Anything less than strict adherence to a list would be another fight… and there are already too many of those.
