Winter Meal Prep: Northern Michigan Edition

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This web application helps Northern Michigan residents plan their weekly soup and stew meals by combining nine curated winter recipes with AI-powered shopping assistance. Users can browse recipes designed for the region's cold climate, click any recipe to see full ingredients and instructions, and receive custom prompts for Chef Tilly—an OpenAI ChatGPT assistant that analyzes uploaded grocery store weekly ads (screenshots or PDFs) to identify which recipe ingredients are currently on sale. The app provides ready-to-copy prompts that help users make informed decisions about which recipes to prepare based on actual local pricing at Meijer, Aldi, and Costco.

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In the future, with direct API access from major grocery chains, this app could automatically fetch real-time pricing data for all recipe ingredients across local stores, instantly scoring and ranking recipes by total cost and highlighting which items are on sale this week. Users would simply enter their zip code, and the system would generate optimized shopping lists that route them to the best store for each ingredient, calculate total weekly meal prep costs, and track price trends over time to alert them when key ingredients hit their lowest prices. This automation would transform the current manual screenshot-and-upload workflow into a seamless one-click experience, making budget-conscious meal planning truly effortless for families managing tight grocery budgets during Michigan's long winter months.