My AI Sous Chef: Crafting a Custom Recipe Generator for Dig Inn Favorites

My Obsession with Dig Sides
I am a SUCKER for Dig (Inn) type sides and salads…give me a Kale Cashew Caesar, that roasted apples dish, don’t even get me started on whatever kind of cauliflower side they have on tap that month. I want “ALL DEM” as my son used to say when he was 3 years old, talking about one of his own special interests that definitely wasn’t salads.

The Recipe Project Idea
So I thought, 🤷🏻‍♀️, let’s make a Claude “Project” that encapsulates everything the AI needs to know to give me copycat recipes for these favorites, but also be able to generate new recipe based on the ingredients I either had in my fridge already, or an ingredient that I was especially craving that week.

Gathering Inspiration: Screenshots Method
Ok, time to do some screenshots. For those that don’t know, you can feed Claude (and most AIs) information not only through words you type in the chat area, but you can also upload documents, like PDFs, cut/paste text, and also upload photos. And that last one is what I did. You can add these files by clicking the “+” under the “chat with Claude” prompt.

Research and Building the Knowledge Base
I did a quick search for “classic” Dig (Inn) menus to see if I could get the name and ingredients of some more sides and salads. Once I had about 5 screenshots saved to my photos, I went into the Claude chat and added them to my new chat. Then I asked it to come up with a prompt that would help provide recipes and suggestions for new sides and salads based off of things I had in the kitchen. 

Creating the Perfect Prompt
And here is the prompt that Claude came up with. Thorough, yet specific, with all the details I needed to instruct future Claude. From here I went to “Create Project” (in orange type usually on the upper right hand side). 

Setting Up Your AI Kitchen Assistant
After naming and describing the project, I clicked the “Create Project” button. That takes you to a new window where you’ll see “Custom Instructions” with an orange link to Add Instructions. Click on “Add Instructions.” You’ll see a new window open with “How should Claude respond.” This is where I pasted the prompt that was created earlier.

Ready to Cook with AI
Once the prompt was entered in that window and I clicked “Save,” this Claude Project was good to go. Now I had a recipe generator and collaborator who knew my specific and delicious preferences for the kinds of sides and salads that I wanted. 

Try It Yourself
Here’s a link to the prompt, if you want to try it for yourself. Once created, you can tell it what ingredients you have or want to work with, and it’ll give you suggestions for dishes and recipes. 

Happy prompting, I mean eating!

Check out some of the things I made with my AI Sous Chef…including “Elevated Nachos” and “What do I do with these soft boiled eggs?”