I love to cook. But sometimes I have a hard time coming up with meal ideas, especially since I’m a cheatin’ vegan (I eat seafood, but no dairy or other animal products), and my husband is decidedly not vegan, cheatin’ or otherwise. So I’ll text him to ask what he wants for dinner—hoping for inspiration—and he’ll write back, “I don’t care. Whatever we can both eat.” Cue me staring at the contents of the fridge for 30 minutes.
But now that I’ve found SuperCook.com, I’m newly inspired in the kitchen—and becoming a pro at stretching my odds and ends to save money, too. This recipe finder site makes me feel like a superhero. I just enter what I have in my fridge and cabinets, and it spits out a list of things (starters, entrees and desserts) I can make without hitting the grocery store. Then it sends me to the Web site where my chosen recipe originally appeared.
On my first try, I added a few things I had on hand, including frozen shrimp, tomatoes, rosemary, white beans, leftover pasta, chickpeas, black beans and corn tortillas, and I only got three entrées I could make.
But when I looked down at the “Do you have?” suggestion box, I realized I was forgetting tons of basics; I clicked to add garlic, olive oil, lemon and (half an) onion, and the world opened up—I had the ingredients for a whopping 37 meals!
And it even lets you add exclusions to your list, so I simply selected “all dairy” to keep cheese and cream from creeping into the mix. I picked Lemon-Rosemary Grilled Shrimp, and was taken to MarthaStewart.com, for the recipe, which I added to a bag of organic salad mix. And there were more than 2,000 recipes I could make if I was willing to run to the store for an ingredient or two (I wasn’t).
And you can save your fave meals to create a virtual recipe box, so you can add to your rotation. SuperCook is a lifesaver when it comes to getting the most out of your leftovers without blowing a ton of cash in the store.
Wondering what to do with all that leftover turkey and stuffing? Log in and start exploring! Bon appétit!
Subscribe to ShopSmart today!
Patrick DelRosario
07:29:13 AM on Sun Nov 25 2012
Thanks for sharing this.It's really a big help.