Cook It!

You saved it. Now cook it. Turn a recipe video or a photo from your cookbook into a grocery list you can actually use.

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Inspiration

People save tons of recipes from videos, websites, and cookbooks, but rarely cook them. The hardest part isn’t finding recipes, it’s turning them into a real plan and a usable grocery list. Cook It was inspired by that gap between inspiration and action.

What it does

Cook It turns a recipe video, webpage, or cookbook photo into a clean grocery list and a simple cooking plan. Users can combine multiple recipes into one list, reduce duplicates, and plan their cooking week with less effort and less waste.

How we built it

I built Cook It as a mobile app using Expo and React Native, with a lightweight serverless backend on Cloudflare Workers. I extract transcription from videos and webpages using Supadata, then use OpenAI to transform messy inputs into structured, grocery-ready data. RevenueCat powers the monetization flow.

Challenges we ran into

Cloudflare Workers were sometimes slow to spin up and respond, which required extra care around timeouts and UX. I also initially planned to build the video transcription pipeline myself, but quickly realized it was too complex to implement something that works for several different platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc... So I switched to Supadata as a reliable, ready-to-use solution.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Turning multiple types of recipe content into one clean grocery list
  • A frictionless, no-signup experience
  • A monetization flow that appears only after users see real value

What we learned

This was my first time setting up a paywall with RevenueCat, and I was surprised by how easy and developer-friendly it is. The documentation and tooling made it simple to implement a clean monetization flow without slowing down development.

What's next for Cook It!

I plan to improve ingredient accuracy, add smarter meal planning over time, and expand sharing and household features while staying focused on one goal: helping people actually cook the recipes they already love.

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