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Pick weeknight dinners from the pantry with a Claude Project and Notion

WorkedEvidence: Described by posterPosted Last checked

After a Hermes agent choked, Patrick Saikas built a Claude Project that offers about 15 dinner ideas and lists only what's missing.

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Using our recipe library, pantry inventory and preferences in Notion, propose about 15 weeknight dinner options we can get on the table in under 30 minutes. After I pick 3–4, schedule the most perishable ingredients earliest in the week and add only the missing ingredients to our shared shopping list, skipping pantry staples and tagging the items you add.

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Our rewrite with extra checks. The poster didn't test it.

Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about the details below and wait for my answers. Once I've answered, confirm the plan in one line and run the whole task start to finish.

Goal: Turn what's in my kitchen into 3–4 quick weeknight dinners and a shopping list for only what's missing.

Questions to ask me first:
- What's in your pantry and fridge right now?
- Any foods, spice levels or cuisines to favor or avoid?
- Where should the shopping list go?

Inputs (fill in or confirm):
- Pantry and fridge inventory: [INVENTORY]
- Recipe library or favorite dishes: [RECIPES]
- Household preferences and limits: [PREFERENCES]
- Max cooking time per dinner: [MINUTES]
- Shopping list app: [LIST APP]

Rules:
- Offer about 15 options and let me pick.
- Schedule meals with the most perishable ingredients first.
- Leave pantry staples off the list.
- Mark which list items you added so they can be removed if a meal is dropped.

Checkpoint: Show me the options as a short list and wait for my picks before building the plan.

If you get stuck: If the inventory or recipe list is too long to keep straight, work in smaller chunks and tell me what you skipped.

Verify before you finish: Check that each chosen dinner fits the time limit and that every missing ingredient is on the list once.

Output: A day-by-day dinner plan and the shopping list.

Done when: I have this week's dinners and a list I can shop from.

AI tools

ClaudeHermes

Outcome

Patrick Saikas first tried a Hermes agent for weekly meal planning, but it choked: its context window couldn't hold the pantry inventory, recipe library, weekly plan and shopping list at once. Saikas then built a Claude Project connected to Notion through the MCP connector, with databases for recipes, pantry, weekly plan and shopping list. Each week Claude proposes around 15 dinner options and Saikas picks 3–4 that can be on the table in under 30 minutes. The most perishable ingredients get scheduled earliest in the week. Missing ingredients go to the shared Apple Reminders list, with pantry staples excluded, and Claude tags its own items so it can remove a dropped dish's ingredients. Setting up the pantry took 20 minutes of transcribing everything out loud. A preferences rule had to be added after gai lan started showing up too often. The first recipe out of the system, dry fried green beans with beef, got cooked that night.

Evidence: Described by posterThe person describes what happened in words, without screenshots or video.

Source

Posted
by Patrick Saikas (blog)
Last checked
Method:
How we verify

https://patricksaikas.com/blog/meal-planning-with-claude

Context: The exact prompt isn't quoted, so the prompt here is recreated. Saikas writes about AI for work and invites readers to get in touch about AI workflows.

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