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Plan five low-waste dinners and a Grocy shopping list with Claude Cowork

WorkedEvidence: Described by posterPosted Last checked

Adam Davidson had Claude Cowork load recipes into Grocy, pick two extra dinners to use up leftovers and build the shopping list.

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Prompt

Recreated prompt

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What the prompt labels mean

The person didn't share their exact words, so we wrote this from what they described. We haven't tested it, and they didn't use this exact version.

Open Grocy in Chrome and add each of the recipes I give you, with every ingredient, scaled for a family of four, creating any product categories it needs. Then, starting from an empty pantry, take the three dinners I pick for this week, choose two more recipes from Grocy that use up as many leftover perishable ingredients as possible, and add everything needed to the Grocy shopping list.

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ChatGPT Gemini Grok Claude

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Optional stronger version

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: Plan a five-dinner week that wastes as little food as possible and put every ingredient I need on my shopping list.

Questions to ask me first:
- Which three dinners do you want this week?
- What's already in the fridge and pantry?
- How many people are you cooking for?

Inputs (fill in or confirm):
- Recipe list or recipe app: [RECIPES OR APP]
- Three dinners I picked: [DINNERS]
- What I already have: [PANTRY AND FRIDGE]
- Household size: [NUMBER]
- Where the shopping list should go: [LIST APP]

Rules:
- Pick the two extra dinners to use up perishable leftovers from my three picks.
- Scale every recipe to my household size.
- Don't add items I already have.
- Don't buy or check out anything.

Checkpoint: Show me the five dinners and the leftover ingredients each extra dinner uses, and wait for my OK before adding to the list.

If you get stuck: If you can't open my recipe app, give me the list as plain text grouped by store section.

Verify before you finish: Check that every ingredient for all five dinners is either in stock or on the list, with no duplicates.

Output: The five dinners in suggested cooking order and the finished shopping list.

Done when: My shopping list is ready and the week's dinners use up the perishables.

AI tool

Claude Cowork

Outcome

Adam Davidson of How-To Geek wanted to stop the weekly grind of planning meals and buying ingredients. Davidson set up Grocy in Home Assistant, then used Claude Cowork's computer use features to let Claude take over Chrome and add the family's favorite recipes to Grocy, adjusted for a family of four. It took some time and a couple of tweaks, but all the recipes and product categories ended up in Grocy. In a test that started from a bare cupboard, Davidson picked three recipes and Claude chose two more that used up as many of the leftover perishable ingredients as possible. Everything went onto the Grocy shopping list, giving Davidson a working prototype far more quickly than doing it by hand.

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

Source

Posted
by Adam Davidson (How-To Geek)
Last checked
Method:
How we verify

https://www.howtogeek.com/claude-built-a-system-to-solve-my-biggest-frustration/

Context: The exact prompt isn't quoted, so the prompt here is recreated. Davidson calls this a working prototype.

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