Gardner Kitchen: Getting Started

Gardner Kitchen plans a week of dinners around what's on sale at your stores. It builds your recipes, a Sunday prep list and a shopping list sorted by store and aisle. You don't need a Claude account. It's a website, and the AI is covered for you.

1. Open your kitchen and put it on your home screen

1. Go to gardnerkitchen.com in Safari (iPhone) or Chrome (Android).
2. Enter your kitchen's passcode from Chuck. Each house has its own, and it takes you straight to your kitchen. You only enter it once on each phone.
3. Add it to your home screen so it opens like an app:
   • iPhone (Safari): tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
   • Android (Chrome): tap the ⋮ menu, then Add to Home screen.
4. From now on, open Gardner Kitchen from that icon.

Everyone in your household who uses the same passcode sees the same plan and check marks.

2. Set up your household (one time)

Open the Household tab and check these. Chuck filled in starter values, so change anything that's wrong.

• People eating and weekly grocery budget
• Usual heat level. "No heat" means nothing spicy. "Heat on the side" cooks it mild and puts hot sauce on the table for whoever wants it.
• ZIP code. This picks which stores' weekly ads you get. Use the ZIP where you shop, which doesn't have to be your home ZIP. Around Amazonia, Savannah and St. Joseph, use 64506.
• Where you live and Getting to the store, for example "Savannah, MO" and "about 20 minutes to north St. Joseph". These help with prices and with keeping you to one trip.
• Stores I'll shop. Tick only the stores you actually go to. If you just changed your ZIP, save first and the store list updates.
• Allergies (never used) and dislikes
• Meal preferences, equipment, and what you always have on hand. Pantry staples stay off your list.
• Hy-Vee Perks. Tick it if you have a Perks account, so plans use member prices.

Tap Save household. Until you do, the form shows "Unsaved changes."

Want a different name for your house? Use the Rename box at the bottom of the Household tab.

Change your passcode at the bottom of the Household tab, too. Enter the current one and a new one. Everyone else in your house will need the new passcode, and their phones get signed out until they enter it. Forgot it? Chuck can reset it.

About your data

Gardner Kitchen keeps track of how it's used so it can keep getting better at saving you money: the meals you plan and cook, the stores you shop, which sale items make your list, your estimated savings, and the prices on receipts you scan. That's part of how the app works, so there's no opt-out. Chuck only shares totals across all households, never your family's details, and your data is never sold.

3. Your first week: Pick meals

Every Thursday morning, the app loads that week's sale ads and a fresh batch of dinner ideas for your house.

1. Open Pick meals.
2. Cook nights: tap a day to switch it between Cook and Off.
3. Heat this week: change it if this week is different from usual.
4. Tick the ideas you want. Each card shows the time, rough cost, stores and what's on sale. Every idea also has its own heat setting.
5. Family recipes sit at the top. Tick one to put it in the week. The yellow tags show which of its ingredients are on sale.
6. Tap Build my week.
7. A dark bar at the bottom shows it working. It usually takes 1–3 minutes.
8. If you pick fewer meals than cook nights, it fills the rest. Pick none and the button says Let Claude pick.

4. Shopping

Open Shopping.

• The list is split by store, then by aisle.
• Yellow price tags are sale prices. A gray note gives the exact product and pack size the sale covers.
• "Sale prices good through ___" under each store tells you how long that store's ad runs. Anything ending sooner gets a red Sale ends tag.
• "Paid $__ on ___" is what your house paid last time, from your receipts.
• Tick items as they go in the cart. Everyone in your house sees the check marks.
• Copy list copies the whole list so you can text it to someone.

5. Scan your receipts

After you shop, tap Scan a receipt on the Shopping or Deals tab and snap each receipt. A flat, close-up shot works best.

The app reads every grocery line and saves what you actually paid, so estimates get more accurate every week. To see everything you've paid, go to Deals → Prices I've paid.

6. Prep and cook

Prep tab: your prep-day checklist. Each task shows which meals it sets up and how long it keeps, such as "Good through Thu." If prepped food would go bad before its meal, you'll see a red warning.

This week tab:

• The dark Today card shows tonight's dinner and any prep left for today.
• Tap any meal for the full recipe: ingredients, steps, and what was already done on prep day.
• Tap Mark cooked when you're done.

Inside a recipe you can also:

• Change servings with − and +, then tap Update (company coming!).
• Change the heat and tap Rewrite at this heat.
• Swap it for something else.
• Move it to another night. Tapping a night that already has a dinner swaps the two.

7. Next week

When Thursday's new ideas show up, go back to Pick meals.

• Still on this week's plan lists meals you haven't marked cooked. Check a meal to move it into next week. Leave it unchecked if you'll still cook it this week.
• After you build, This week keeps showing the current week until Sunday. Use the This week / Next week buttons to preview what's coming.

Add your own family recipes

Pick meals → Add a recipe. Paste the recipe or snap photos of a recipe card. It joins the shared family recipe box for every house.

Quick fixes

Happy cooking!

Sign in to your kitchen →