RecipeMemoir User Guide

1. Signing in

RecipeMemoir uses magic links instead of passwords. Enter your email on the sign-in page, click the link we send you, and you're in. There's no password to invent, forget, or reuse.

You only need to sign in to change things. Reading and cooking from a public recipe site never requires an account.

2. Getting recipes in

Import a whole Paprika collection

In Paprika, choose Settings, then Export, then "Paprika Recipe Format." That produces a .paprikarecipes file. Drop it on our Import page and every recipe, photo, rating, and category comes across. A collection of 1,600 recipes takes a few minutes.

Right after an import, we offer two cleanups: sorting your new recipes into categories, and flagging recipes that arrived without a serving count. Both are optional and both are undoable.

Save one recipe from any website

On Find recipes, paste the address of almost any recipe page and we save a clean copy: ingredients, steps, photo, and a link back to the source. That page also has a directory of good recipe sites to explore, from AllRecipes to Smitten Kitchen.

Add one by hand

For Grandma's index card, open any recipe, choose Edit, and you'll see how the fields work; a new blank recipe works the same way. Type it in, snap a photo, done.

3. Browsing and searching

• Search from the home page finds recipes by name or ingredient.
• Browse all shows every recipe with filters for meal, cuisine, dish type, protein, and more. Diet views (high protein, low carb, keto, light) only include recipes whose nutrition we actually trust, so a "low carb" label is never a guess.
• Sort by newest, name, rating, or nutrition numbers like protein per 100 calories.
• Favorites: tap the heart on any recipe and it joins your Favorites list.

4. The recipe page

• Scaling: change the serving count and every ingredient quantity recalculates, fractions included.
• US or Metric: one toggle converts units throughout.
• Timers: any time in the directions ("simmer 20 minutes") is tappable and starts a real timer. A small confirmation appears so you know it took.
• Notes live right under the directions, where you'd write them in a cookbook margin.
• Print: recipes print clean, without the site around them.

5. Editing recipes

Once you're signed in (or have entered your editor key), every recipe has an Edit view: name, description, times, servings, ingredients, directions, categories, rating, and photo. Edits save to a personal layer, so your version wins without destroying the original import.

6. Photos and AI photo tools

• Upload: swap any recipe's photo from the editor. Big files are resized automatically.
• ✨ Upscale (AI): sharpens and enlarges a blurry or tiny photo. You preview the result full-size and decide whether to keep it.
• 🎨 Generate (AI): creates a brand-new food photo from the recipe's own ingredients, words in, picture out. Optionally add an inspiration photo (your own shot, or the current photo) to guide the plating and lighting. Nothing is saved until you click "Use this photo."
• Photo quality lines up your whole collection blurriest-first, surfaces black or missing photos, and lets you fix, skip, or bulk-delete from one screen.

7. Nutrition

Recipes show per-serving nutrition as animated rings: calories, protein, carbs, fat, fiber, sugar, and sodium, each with its percent of the daily value.

Honesty rules the numbers. Every figure carries a confidence score; when our estimate isn't solid, the page says "estimated" or "rough estimate" instead of pretending. When a recipe's source published its own numbers and they disagree with our USDA-based math by more than 25%, the recipe editor offers a second opinion panel showing both, and you choose which to keep. One click undoes it.

8. AI commentary

On any recipe you can ask for commentary in different modes: the food science behind a step, a budget angle, kid-friendly notes, a chef's technique tip, nutrition context, storage and make-ahead advice, history, a faster path, or troubleshooting. Each mode is generated once, then saved with the recipe, so re-opening it is instant and costs nothing.

9. Pantry

• Quick-add: type a comma-separated list ("flour, eggs, butter, thyme") and everything lands in your pantry at once. Quantities and expiry dates are optional.
• Expiry tracking: items closest to expiring float to the top so nothing dies in the crisper drawer.
• Cook what you have: shows up to 100 recipes you can make from what's on hand. Recipe cards open in a new tab so your pantry stays put.
• Hide an ingredient: skipping carbs today? Temporarily hide your flour and the suggestions steer around it. Unhide it tomorrow.

10. Shopping lists

• Add from a recipe with one tap, or type items by hand (comma-separated works here too).
• Aisles: items group by aisle, and you can add, rename, or delete aisles to match how your store is actually laid out, per store.
• Shop at Walmart: each item gets a search link into Walmart's site so online ordering is a click per item.

11. Meal planning

The Plan page lays out your week; drop recipes onto days and build the shopping list from the plan. The Insight page shows your cooking patterns: what you actually cook, streaks, and collection stats.

12. Keeping your collection tidy

• Duplicate cleanup finds near-duplicate recipes. You choose how picky the scan is (very picky, balanced, relaxed), or hand-pick a set yourself if you know two recipes are twins. The AI judges each set and recommends which to keep; you apply or override. "Consolidate into keeper" merges the best of the duplicates (ratings, cook history, photos, tags) into the one you keep, and an AI blend can weave a duplicate's extra ingredients into the keeper's directions with sensible quantities. Everything is archived, not destroyed, and undo is one click.
• Checkups (servings, course & times, photos) find data problems so you fix them in one sitting instead of stumbling on them one by one.

13. Your own recipe website

This is the heart of RecipeMemoir: your collection becomes a real, beautiful, shareable website.

• Pick a style from the gallery, two dozen looks inspired by the best recipe sites on the web, each filled live with your actual recipes as you browse it.
• Your link is recipememoir.com/u/your-handle. Anyone can visit; no app, account, or password needed to view.
• Make it yours: as the owner you can recolor your site with the palette picker, choose which category circles appear on your homepage, and edit any recipe right on the page. Visitors see the finished site, never the controls.
• Switch styles anytime; your recipes stay put.

14. Your data, always yours

You can export your entire collection as a JSON file at any time, free, from your account. Every imported recipe keeps its source link. Print-ready cookbook and PDF exports are on the roadmap; the door out will always be as easy as the door in, because data lock-in is the thing this product exists to end.

15. Beta program notes

• The version badge in the footer (Beta v0.9.x) links to the changelog, so nothing changes under you unannounced.
• The 💡 lightbulb on every page sends us a suggestion; you'll get a receipt by email and we read every note.
• Paprika export and sync-back are planned for an upcoming version; until then, treat RecipeMemoir as a copy of your Paprika collection, not a replacement for it.

Can't find an answer? Send us a note or email [email protected].