{"id":560,"date":"2026-10-26T16:55:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/lab\/what-shall-i-cook-this-week\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T17:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:35:26","slug":"recipe-assistant","status":"publish","type":"lab_project","link":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/lab\/recipe-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"What shall I cook this week?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The need<\/h2>\n

I love Asian cooking and, above all, I love the way many Asian cuisines turn even simple vegetables into delicious dishes. So at a certain point I started asking Gemini for suggestions on what I could cook and how I could cook it so as to bring out those Asian flavours more. After a few weeks, though, I wondered whether there was a more efficient way to approach the question. So I thought of asking Gemini to create a weekly plan for me, with all the meals already planned and the shopping list.<\/p>\n

What it does<\/h2>\n

It is a single HTML file with a weekly menu that includes every lunch and every dinner. There is the recipe with ingredients and steps, a tool to see at a glance how to replace an ingredient or a whole recipe, and a pre-filled shopping list.<\/p>\n

\n\"The<\/a>
The weekly menu: every day has lunch and dinner, with the option to change recipe or replace an ingredient.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For quite a long time I opened it every day and it helped me save time and eat better. Today I no longer use it, but only because I am working on a version 2.0, better in its functions and in its interface.<\/p>\n

Where I went wrong and what I learned<\/h2>\n

I asked Gemini to build it, and I received a file I could not use. The mistake was mine: I did not say what I wanted back and I assumed Gemini would behave like Claude which, when in doubt, hands you an HTML file or asks you questions.<\/p>\n

In fact Gemini’s choice was a smart one, because the file relied on outside services to use its own AI to replace recipes for which I did not have the ingredients.<\/p>\n

After a few failed attempts to explain to Gemini what I needed, namely being able to open the file and its functions at any moment from any device, I decided to hand the work over to Claude, which at that point solved the problem by simplifying how it works.<\/p>\n

An example that shows one of the most important features of a prompt: asking for a specific output. Telling the AI how you want it is just as important as explaining what you want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A weekly menu with Asian-style recipes designed to fit my diet. The system can also create the shopping list and ask for alternatives when ingredients are missing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","project_status":[23],"project_type":[27],"class_list":["post-560","lab_project","type-lab_project","status-publish","hentry","project_status-retired","project_type-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lab_project"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project\/560\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_status?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"project_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_type?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}