I really am not a great cook…and I am not good at planning meals in advance. That means we often end up ordering in or going out for a meal—not a very budget-conscious solution. And worse, I frequently throw out unused produce and other items that have gone bad.
But here may be the solution! Bryce Norblom, chief instructor at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, offers these three apps that can help me use the things in my fridge and pantry to put together tasty meals.
SuperCook scans more than 18,000 recipe websites, including Food.com, Epicurious.com and MarthaStewart.com, to give lots of options. Check off the ingredients you have, so the app knows what you have to work with.
BigOven makes it easy to find recipes. If you click its “Use Up LeftOvers” tab (click on the magnifying glass), it prompts you to enter three ingredients and will suggest dishes featuring those ingredients from its database of more than a million recipes. Some suggestions may require items you don’t have, but you can always look for another recipe.
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner is a fun way to find new recipes. Select “Dinner Spinner” from the Allrecipes menu, and you’ll be prompted to select a dish type, a main ingredient that you have on hand and a prep time. Because you tell the app only a single ingredient, you may have to search to find a recipe that works with what you have on hand.
Now if I could just find an app that would do the cooking for me, all would be right with the world!
