To think that I am a very sad human being but I'm going to ask anyway....

[stillawip]

Hi everyone,
I have lots of cookbooks, and whenever I have something to use up in the fridge, I would like to be able to go straight to a recipe in one of my books that uses that ingredient. Or, if I want to cook a particular dish (say apple pie), I want to be able to find out quickly which of my books have a recipe for apple pie in, rather than trawling them all. So, being the sad human being that I am, some years ago I started to make an index on Microsoft Excel of all the recipes in my favourite books, and then categorising them under appropriate headings (so for apple pie it would appear if I looked under 'Apples', 'Desserts - Sweet pies' and 'Desserts - Fruit' ) thus making it easy for me to search. The list has now grown like Topsy & I would love to know how to automate what I am doing a bit more, but I don't know what that would be called!! How could I do that?

Do I need a catalogue function? An index? A drop-down list? Any ideas?!

YABU - you are a very sad human being and you should go & lie down in a darkened room for at least a year.
YANBU - this is a genius idea & here's my suggestion

Monica? Is that you?
Clever idea, not sure id have bothered though 🤣editing to add that's because I'm lazy, not because it's sad!

I am not anywhere near organised enough to make a suggestion, but I’m here to say you aren’t sad at all, you enjoy cooking, and you found a way of making the thing that you love more efficient and organised. It’s the opposite of sad!

OP this is the best thing I've read on the internet. What I want is the ability to plug in the ingredients I have and an app will produce a recipe that uses them all up!

I love this idea!!!

I can't offer any advice as I can't work excel and have been banned from our shared spreadsheet at work for breaking it (three times), but I hope you find a solution!

@NothingVenturedAndAllThat

I think there are several!

https://www.escoffieronline.com/top-apps-for-finding-recipes-for-ingredients-you-already-have/

There is an app/website called eat your books.
i think it basically does this for you (though you have to pay)

Crikey, I am behind the times! Brb gonna go cook everything in my kitchen.

Thanks for the heads-up!

I use eatyourbooks.com

If you can get hold of a copy of Microsoft Access then that may work better. It's a database software so probably more akin to what you're looking for. Also, because it's Microsoft it should able to transfer all the info without any hassle.

I've been through similar before and been told off by an IT engineer for using Excel as a database! I'm still not sure of the difference between a spreadsheet and a database are though!

The easiest thing would be Ctrl+F surely?

Oh yes, I have tried that but it didn’t really work for me as I didn’t want to use their categories, eg ‘Cooking ahead’, & if I had leftover bay leaves I’d bin them, not look for a recipe filed under ‘Bay leaves’. I mean, I may be sad but I’m not a lunatic…

Do you use data filters on your spreadsheet op?

They're easy to add and I don't mind helping you.

You can then filter by items in each column.

You could make it into a pivot table?

A database! Ooh, maybe that’s what I’m doing, is it?!

Yep :)

No ideas but thank you for sharing!!!!! I have too many cookbooks and often get sidetracked trying to find a particular recipe.....so well done on being so organised x

I don’t know, do I?! I have no idea what those are, sorry! 🤣

Could i?! What’s that?!

Probably not then lol

If you look at the menu that goes across the top of rather spreadsheet, under 'data' you'll see 'filter' - icon looks like a metal funnel.

Highlight the row with you column headings on and then click the data filter button.

Hmmm, sadly not as it wouldn’t tell me the ingredients in a recipe…

I just Google it.

My husband did something similar but in reverse. He input all our recipes into a spreadsheet then each week we would select the meals we wanted for the next week and it would create a shopping list for us . No idea what excel wizardry he used though!

Pivot tables are a nightmare unless you're a hardcore excel user!

I use Recipe Keeper app. I think it's a one-off cost of £13. You can upload recipes from a photo or website, so there's probably a way of getting data from excel. You can search for an ingredient and it will give you a list of your recipes containing that ingredient.
The free version only stores 20 recipes, not enough to be useful but you could see if you like it before you buy it.

Build yourself an app with Microsoft powerapps? Surprisingly easy