CookWise

About CookWise

CookWise is for people who want to cook at home but are not sure where to begin. It collects recipes from many cuisines and puts the useful details in one place.

The goal is simple: help someone choose a recipe and start cooking.

Who CookWise Is For

CookWise works well for people learning kitchen basics, spending less on takeout, or looking for practical meals. Some recipes are quick and simple. Others give you a chance to try something more involved.

How CookWise Helps

Every recipe includes its difficulty, approximate cooking time, serving size, ingredients, instructions, and estimated macros. Servings can be adjusted for one to eight people, and CookWise scales ingredient quantities and recipe totals accordingly.

A daily recommendation gives visitors somewhere to start. The recipe order changes regularly, but the saved recipes are not deleted.

Personal Choices and Cooking Progress

Users who sign in can save preferences for serving count, cuisine, maximum cooking time, and minimum protein per serving. Those choices remain connected to the user's CookWise account.

Cooks can also record each completed dish. Trying a new recipe earns a Taste Trailblazer achievement, while cooking the same recipe at least four times earns an Encore Expert achievement. These achievements stack as users build experience in the kitchen.

Where the Recipes Come From

CookWise imports real recipes from Spoonacular and links back to each credited original publisher. The saved catalog contains only recipe IDs, titles, and image URLs. Current ingredients, instructions, nutrition, and source information are retrieved when a recipe is opened and are not stored by CookWise.

A recipe can stay in the collection even when its nutrition is not an ideal match. CookWise adds context, such as a note about sodium or a suggestion to add protein. This supports informed choices without treating food as perfect or imperfect.

Accounts and Privacy

Account profiles, saved preferences, cooking history, and achievements are stored in CookWise's local database. Passwords are protected with salted hashes rather than being saved as readable text. Private API keys and local database files are not included when the project is uploaded to GitHub.

Responsible Use