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Cook.md Blog
Recipes, cooking tips, and product updates.
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Bring Your Own Template: Custom Reports From Your Recipes
Your recipes are structured data, not just text. Cook Editor's new Render Report command lets you run your own templates over them — shopping lists, ingredient lists, nutrition notes, cost breakdowns, printable cards — and see the result update live as you write.
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The Plain-Text Canon (and Why Recipes Belong In It)
The software people stay loyal to for decades tends to have one thing in common: it stores your data as plain text. Here's the canon — Ledger, Obsidian, Org-mode, Git — and why recipes belong in it.
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Samsung Food (Whisk) vs Cook: Free, but What Happens to Your Data?
Samsung Food (formerly Whisk) is free and feature-rich — but free apps are usually monetised through your data. Cook costs a little and keeps your recipes as plain-text files you own. An honest comparison.
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Paprika vs Cook: AI Meal Planning vs a Polished Recipe Box
Paprika is a polished, one-time-purchase recipe manager. Cook is plain-text recipes you own plus an AI that plans your week. Here's an honest comparison of which fits how you cook.
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The Real Cost of Meal Kits (and the Plain-Text Alternative)
Meal kits like HelloFresh solve decision fatigue — but you pay a premium for dinner alone, eat fixed portions you can't flex, and still throw food away. Here's the cheaper, more complete alternative.
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HelloFresh vs Gousto vs Blue Apron: Which Meal Kit Is Worth It in 2026?
An honest comparison of the three biggest meal kits — HelloFresh, Gousto, and Blue Apron — on price, menu choice, flexibility, and who each suits. Plus a cheaper approach that isn't a kit at all.
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A HelloFresh Alternative That Plans Your Whole Week (and Costs Less)
Looking for a HelloFresh alternative that's cheaper and covers more than just dinner? Cook plans your whole week from your own recipes — you buy the groceries, keep the savings, and own the plan.
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ChatGPT vs Cook for Meal Planning: Why Your Own Recipes Matter
ChatGPT can spit out a meal plan in seconds — but it doesn't know your recipes, can't build a real shopping list from your data, and forgets everything next week. Here's the difference with Cook.
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Planning a Week of Dinners with AI (That You Actually Want to Eat)
Most meal-plan generators pick recipes at random. CookBot understands your collection, your preferences, and what actually tastes good together.
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Your Recipes in Sync Without the Lock-in
Most recipe apps make you choose: sync to the cloud and lose control, or stay local and sync by hand. Cook does both — your files stay plain text and yours.
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Bulk Import Your Recipes Into Cook in Minutes
Your recipes are scattered across Paprika, Mela, and browser bookmarks. Here's how to move them all into Cook — one at a time, or your whole library at once.
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Write Your First Recipe in Cooklang in Five Minutes
Cooklang looks intimidating if you've never seen it — but it's simpler than Markdown. Here's how to write your first recipe in five minutes.
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