Why a family cookbook
The recipes that get handed down — Grandma’s bolognese, the birthday cake everyone asks for — usually live on a stained index card or in someone’s head. The Family Cookbook keeps them safe in one place: the ingredients and steps, the little story behind them, photos, and a running log of every time someone in the family cooks one.
Opening the cookbook
In the sidebar, open The Bean Pod → Family Cookbook (on a phone, tap the Pod tab). You’ll see it titled “Secret Family Recipes” (shhh 🤫). There’s also a shortcut on the Meet the Beans page.
Adding a recipe
Don’t fancy typing it all in? Tap Read a Recipe instead and hand beanies a photo, a PDF, a recipe link or a cooking video — it fills the whole thing in for you to check. See Add a Recipe From Anywhere.
To type one in yourself:
Tap Add a recipe
Give it a Recipe name (e.g. “Grandma’s Bolognese”) and, if you like, a Subtitle for the story behind it (“passed down from Mary, ~1972”)
Add the Prep time, Cook time and Servings (the number of people it feeds; use − and + or type it)
List the Ingredients — one per line — and the Preparation steps, also one step per line
Add any Family notes (the little things — “Ansel asks for this every Sunday”) and Photos
Tap Save
Add the recipe’s name first — then you can attach photos. (Photos also need Google Drive turned on; see Adding Photos.)
Inside a recipe
Tap a recipe card to open its page. You’ll find the Ingredients, How to make it (the steps), the Family notes, and the Cook Log.
If the recipe came from a website, you’ll also see a small 🔗 link back to where it came from — handy when you want the original’s photos or the writer’s notes.
The Cook Log
Every time you make a recipe, tap I cooked this today — give it a rating, and (if you want) add a photo of how it turned out. Over time the recipe builds its own little history: how many times it’s been cooked and its average rating. It’s a quiet way to see which recipes the family actually loves.
If a family member has a favourite food, you can link it to a recipe in the cookbook — open their Favorites tab and choose (or add) the recipe. Then you can hop from the bean to the recipe and back.
To change a recipe, open it, edit any field, and save. To remove it, use the delete option and confirm — deleting can’t be undone, and the cook log goes with it.
Turn a recipe into a shopping list
Once you have picked what you are cooking, tap Shopping List on the recipe. beanies turns the recipe’s ingredients into a checklist, so you do not have to type them out again.
Open the recipe and tap Shopping List.
Every ingredient starts ticked. Untick anything you already have in the cupboard (or use Untick All and tick just what you need), tap any line to change it, and type anything else you need into Add an item.
Choose where it goes. New List makes a fresh shopping list: give it a name if you like, pick who is shopping, and add a due date if you want a reminder. Add to a List adds the ticked lines to one of your open lists instead, such as the week’s groceries.
Tap Create List (or Add when adding to a list). Tap View on the message to go straight to it.
Shopping with someone else? Open the list and use Tick all to finish it in one go, or Clear all ticks to start it over.
Closing the window without tapping Create List (or Add) leaves everything exactly as it was. No list is made and nothing is added.
- Only unticked lines are left out. Whatever is ticked is what goes on the list, exactly as it reads on screen, including anything you changed or added.
- Heading lines are left out. Recipes often group ingredients under headings like “For the sauce:”. Those are not things you buy, so beanies leaves them out and tells you how many it skipped. Add them back if you want them.
- Adding to a list does not check for doubles. If the list already has milk and the recipe needs milk, it will be on there twice. Untick what the list already covers.
- Add before you go. If someone is ticking the same list at the shop while you add to it, one of the two changes can be lost. Add your ingredients before the shop starts.
- Only open, one-off lists are offered. Recurring lists (like a weekly staples list) are left out, so a recipe’s ingredients never become permanent items.
- The recipe remembers. Tap Shopping List again later and beanies shows you the lists you already made from it, with how far through each one you are. Open one to carry on, or start another. You stay in the cookbook until you choose to go.
- Your list is yours. Deleting the recipe later does not delete the list. It stays exactly as you left it.
- Planning the week? The Meal Planner can make one shopping list for every recipe in the week, with how many times each one gets cooked. See Planning your family’s meals.
Related help
- Add a Recipe From Anywhere — read a recipe in from a photo, a link or a video
- Beanie Lists — where your shopping list lives once it is made
- Meet the Beans — link a recipe to a bean’s favourite food
- Adding Photos — attach pictures to recipes and cook-log entries