An experiment in AI recipe creation

When it comes to AI I am conflicted. I can see many advantages to the technology, and I have been very impressed with some of the ways that I've used AI. But I'm also worried about the future - already a huge amount of the content that I see online is AI generated and it is becoming more and more difficult to tell what is real. Not to mention the number of jobs which are at threat - like online content creation!

My particular interest in AI is how I could use it to improve and enhance my daily life. I use ChatGPT and I've tried it out in various different scenarios - for example I've used AI to generate images for blog posts, experimented fairly successfully with AI for holiday planning and I've even completed an AI generated jigsaw puzzle.

This week I thought I would see how good ChatGPT was at recipe creation. I had some eggs that I wanted to use up, and I fancied doing some baking. With my new year's intention being to eat more healthy food I wanted to come up with a savoury recipe that would be nutritious, with plenty of vegetables. I had in mind something like vegetable muffins, but as a larger cake baked in a loaf tin.

I had a few conversations with ChatGPT where I clarified that I wanted the recipe to use eggs, vegetables, and to be vegetarian. I was after something that would be suitable for a light lunch, to be eaten hot, and that could be kept for several days. I narrowed down the vegetables that I wanted to include, and it suggested adding quinoa for some extra bulk, which was great as I have a pack in the cupboard that needs eating up.

After a bit of going back and forth this is what we came up with:

Cheesy Quinoa Vegetable Slice

Ingredients:

60g dry quinoa, cooked in 120ml water until absorbed

2 eggs

80ml milk

80g grated cheese

50g self-raising flour

1 courgette, grated

1 red pepper, diced

1/2 an onion, chopped

salt, pepper and 1 tsp dried herbs

Method:

Mix the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and herbs. Add the cheese, cooked quinoa, courgette, pepper and onion. Fold in the flour until combined. Bake in a loaf tin at 160 for 30-35 mins until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to rest for 5-10 minutes before slicing.

Verdict

I'm enough of a cook that that I was reasonably sure the recipe would at least create something edible. I did ask ChatGPT whether I could trust an AI recipe and it admitted that I probably couldn't trust it entirely, in particular the cooking temperature and times. It also told me that the images I was given were also not to be trusted.

The quantities of the ingredients were just right to fit in my loaf tin. However the baking time was off - I ended up baking for 45 minutes and even then I didn't feel like it was cooked as well as it should be. It looked good out the oven, but when I came to slice up the texture wasn't quite what I was hoping for. I was after a cake like texture, but instead it was more like a thick omelette.

Even though it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, I don't like to waste food, so I decided to repurpose it as vegetable fritters. I cut it into slices and then fried on both sides. This worked much better, the slices were tasty, and it would make a great protein and fibre filled breakfast or lunch.

I had fun experimenting with ChatGPT recipes and seeing what ideas it came up with. Adding the quinoa is something that I wouldn't have considered, and it helped me to think about which ingredients would work well together. I'm not going to be using AI for my recipes on a regular basis, but if I was looking for ideas to use up ingredients that I had lying around then it's not a bad place to start!