I am not a natural cook. But in the last year, I’ve been using LLMs to help figure out recipes with more stuff in season, on sale or any combination of things I’m trying to get rid of. It’s also been fairly good at “I liked this, what are similar dishes?” It’s really helped me eat more local and vegetarian foods and be willing to grab whatever is on sale at the grocery store as I know I’ll be able to make something out of it.
Tips etc so far:
I usually ask for three recipes with whatever constraints (vegetables in season here on this date, using a cup of cream etc), just a name and brief description for each. Repeat, varying as necessary.
Once I have something that appeals, I’ll ask for three or four different recipes for that dish of increasing complexity and select as appropriate.
I don’t quite trust the LLMs with cooking times so I’m pretty careful to check w a meat thermometer.
Any thoughts, suggestions etc?
If you don’t have the requisite cooking skills and knowledge then you really won’t be able determine when your LLM hallucinates bad instructions, which it absolutely will. This is true even without the involvement of an LLM because a lot of blog and recipe sites cut corners to make recipes look shorter and easier than they actually are and you need to know how to navigate that.
A great deal of cooking skills just comes in understanding your ingredients and how they chemically change as they cook. There is no substitute for knowledge and experience, especially when poor preparation can be damaging to your health in cases. Unfortunately, yes, “Git gud” is the answer because the LLM isn’t going to cook the food for you.
God help you if it ever attempts to do so.