LazyChef

Inspiration

My mom wasn't home, and I didn’t know how to cook. I called her for help and she just started yelling at me.

What it does

LazyChef lets you take a photo of the ingredients you have on hand and instantly gives you a recipe you can make with them. No cooking experience required.

How we built it

We built LazyChef using React Native and Expo. For ingredient detection, we used the Google Vision API to scan and identify objects in the photo.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was that the Google Vision API detected everything in the photo — not just food. So plates, tablecloths, and random objects were getting listed as ingredients. We had to build a filtering system to recognize and only keep actual food items.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Getting object detection and ingredient filtering working together smoothly.
Building a fully functional mobile app with a real-world use case in a short time.
Creating an app that could actually help someone like me who can't cook.

What we learned

How to cook.

What's next for LazyChef

For fun, we'd love to train our own AI/ML model specifically to detect real food items — and maybe even recommend recipe upgrades based on what's in your pantry.