Why this exists
Recipes turn up everywhere — a photo of Grandma’s index card, a screenshot from the family chat, a food blog, a YouTube video. Typing all of that in by hand is the reason most family cookbooks stay empty. Hand beanies whatever you have, and it fills in the ingredients, steps, times and servings for you to check before anything is saved.
You still get the final say. Nothing goes into your cookbook until you press Save — the form that opens is your chance to read it over and fix anything.
Starting a recipe reading
Open The Pod 🌱 → Family Cookbook
Tap Read a Recipe at the top of the page (next to Add a recipe)
The first time, beanies asks your permission to send this one recipe to be read — have a look at what it says, then agree
Paste your link straight into the box that opens, then tap Read It. Reading from a photo or a PDF instead? Take a photo and Choose a file are just underneath.
You can also start from a link inside Add a recipe itself — there’s a Start from a link box at the top of the blank form, and it works the same way from the meal planner.
You can also start from the + button anywhere in the app — look for the Magic beans card and tap it. Give beanies the recipe as a photo, a file, a link or pasted text; it works out that it is a recipe and takes you to the cookbook with the reader open.
On a phone, you do not have to start in beanies at all. Wherever the recipe already is — a photo, a screenshot, a PDF — tap Share and choose beanies.family. See Share Something Straight to beanies.
From a photo or a PDF
Take a photo of a cookbook page or a recipe card, choose a screenshot from your phone, or pick a PDF. beanies reads it and opens the recipe form already filled in. Once you save, the original photo or PDF is attached to the recipe, so you always have the thing you started from.
Long PDFs are read a few pages at a time. If yours is longer, beanies tells you — and the whole file is still attached to the recipe, so nothing is lost.
From a recipe website
Choose Paste a Link and drop in the address of a recipe page. Most recipe sites publish their ingredients and steps in a form beanies can read exactly — when that happens, the quantities come straight from the site rather than being worked out, so nothing can be misread. The link is saved with the recipe, so you can always get back to the original.
Some websites don’t allow apps to read their pages. If that happens beanies will tell you plainly rather than guessing — open the page yourself and paste the recipe text instead, or try the site’s “print” version.
From a YouTube video
Paste a video link and beanies tries the most reliable route first: many cooking channels put the full recipe on their own website and link it in the description, so if there’s a link there, beanies follows it and reads the real recipe — exact quantities and all. If there isn’t a link, beanies reads the video’s own description, which is where a lot of cooks paste the whole recipe.
beanies reads what a video writes — its description and any recipe link — not what it says out loud. If a video keeps the recipe only in the narration or on screen, beanies will say it can’t read that one rather than inventing a recipe from the title. That’s deliberate — a made-up quantity in a recipe is worse than no recipe at all. If that happens, check the description for a link to the cook’s website and paste that instead.
Cooks often keep the exact amounts in the video itself — spoken aloud, or on screen as “add the flour” while 250g sits in the corner. beanies reads the description, not the video, so it can only pass on what the cook wrote down. When the description links the full recipe you get exact amounts; when it doesn’t, check them against the video before you cook.
Checking before you save
The recipe form opens with everything filled in. Read it over, fix anything that looks off, and add your own Family notes. Nothing is saved until you tap Save.
If beanies had to fill in an amount or a timing itself — because the source didn’t say — it lists those lines in orange under Ingredients and Preparation steps. Those are the ones worth checking against the original before you cook.
What about the photo?
When a recipe comes from a website, beanies saves a copy of that site’s own photo of the dish into your pod. It’s a real copy, not a link — so the picture keeps working even if the website changes, and viewing your recipe never reaches out to anyone else’s server. You can replace it with your own photo any time.
Photos need Google Drive turned on. Without it the recipe still saves perfectly — you just won’t get the picture or the attached original. See Adding Photos.
Where your recipe goes while it’s being read
The recipe you hand over is sent to be read through the same private path beanies uses for reading invitations and travel bookings — and only that one recipe. Your family’s data isn’t sent, nothing is kept after it’s read, and beanies asks your permission each time before anything leaves your device.
If you’d rather not use it at all, simply don’t — typing a recipe in by hand works exactly as it always has.
Related help
- The Family Cookbook — recipes, the cook log, and adding one by hand
- Adding Photos — how photos and attachments work