Questions

The “Get started” card at the top of the Recipes tab (and Settings › Get started) walks through four things: the recipe sites you import from most, where your lists go (your stores and a Kroger account), the accounts you save to (Allrecipes and MyRecipes), and a few shortcuts worth knowing. Each one opens the page where it is set; skip what you don't need. The card goes away once everything is done or skipped, and can be hidden any time.

The tabs along the bottom (down the side on a wide window) are Recipes, Plan, Shop, Pantry, Cook and Settings. Plan is the meal plan and Shop the shopping list; Cook holds your timers, the Bluetooth thermometers and the conversions calculator.

Kitchen Mode, the step-by-step cooking screen, starts from “Start cooking” on a recipe's page.

No. Recipes, the pantry, the shopping list, timers and Kitchen Mode all work offline, and everything is kept on this device.

The internet is used only when you ask for something that needs it: importing a recipe from a website, downloading recipe photos, looking up aisles at your Kroger store, and opening a store's website from the shopping list.

Settings › Help & About › Cooking glossary has plain definitions of hundreds of cooking terms — methods, cuts, ingredients, barbecue words, equipment, measures, and UK and US names (double cream and heavy cream, courgette and zucchini).

On a recipe, long-press (or right-click) a step or an ingredient to see the terms in it. In Kitchen Mode, press “What is this?” under the step.

On the Recipes tab, press Add Recipe. Give it a name, then add the ingredients (the amount, the ingredient and an optional preparation such as "diced") and the steps.

A step can carry a timer and a target temperature, which Kitchen Mode uses. Press “Save recipe” when you are done.

Saving an edited recipe makes a new version (V1.1, V1.2 and so on), with a note of what changed. Earlier versions are kept, and the recipe's Cooking History records which version each cook used.

On the recipe's page, press “Scale” and pick 0.5x to 5x, or type a new amount into any ingredient's amount box and press Enter — the other scalable amounts follow the same ratio.

Kitchen Mode cooks at the scale you chose. Amounts change; cooking times and temperatures do not, so keep an eye on the food.

Yes. Settings › Measurements switches between Imperial (US) and Metric. Weights, liquid volumes, oven temperatures and lengths are converted like for like; spoons, counts and ranges stay as written.

Saved recipes are shown converted without changing what is stored, and imported recipes are converted as they come in.

Yes, as an estimate. On a recipe's page, the nutrition card's look-up button matches each ingredient to FoodData Central (the US government's food database) once, then shows about how many calories a serving has, with protein, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar and sodium. “Check the matches” lets you correct a match or leave an ingredient out. A recipe that gives no servings but counts pieces in its yield — 36 cookies — is counted a piece at a time.

The shared demo key allows 30 look-ups an hour; a free key from api.data.gov in secrets\retail.env (FDC_API_KEY) allows more.

Every recipe has a category (with sub-sections), an origin when one is known, and tags. The Recipes tab searches recipes, categories and tags, and filters by category, origin, tag, Top rated and site.

Tap the heart on a recipe to make it a favourite, or mark it My recipe from its menu. Find by ingredient lists the recipes you can make with what you have — add ingredients, or “Use my pantry” — with the fewest missing first.

Open the Plan tab and press + on a day to plan a recipe for it — Up next comes first in the list, then your meal groups (a group puts all its recipes on the day). Each recipe shows what the pantry has for it, and a tick once you finish cooking it that day.

“Shop the week” sends everything still to cook this week to the shopping list at once, or only what the pantry does not have.

An ingredient line can point at another recipe in your library — a rub, a sauce or a stock you make yourself. Use the link button on the ingredient's row; the chip then opens that recipe.

When you add the recipe to the shopping list, the app asks whether the linked lines should go on as that recipe's own ingredients, and Kitchen Mode shows the chip on the step that uses it.

From a recipe's menu you can export it as an interactive web page (HTML) to send or print. “Copy recipe to clipboard” on its page copies it as text to paste into a message or an AI assistant.

Not as a new recipe for now: Allrecipes has paused its form for adding recipes. “Save to MyRecipes” (a recipe's menu › “Share and export…”) adds a recipe that has a web page to your saves on the linked account (Settings › Accounts › Allrecipes and MyRecipes), and a meal group's page saves all its recipes. For Cookpad, Food.com or a blog, “Copy for a recipe site” in the menu has each part ready to paste into the site's form.

MyRecipes publishes a list of about 1,800 sites, and the app carries a copy, so “Save to MyRecipes” already knows which recipes it will take and leaves the others out before anything is sent. “Check which sites it takes”, in Settings › Accounts › Allrecipes and MyRecipes once the account is linked, shows that list and can ask MyRecipes about sites that aren't on it — your library's sites first — using a page with no recipe on it, so nothing is saved. It waits between sites, rests now and then, stops on its own if MyRecipes asks it to slow down, and keeps the answers, so each run picks up where the last one stopped. On Windows the results are also saved to Documents › McLearen Kitchen › research.

Settings › My sites. Add the sites you import from most (the app suggests the ones your library came from). They appear as shortcuts on the website import screen — each opens inside the app, with “Import this recipe” ready — go first in the MyRecipes site check, and show whether MyRecipes takes them.

Choose “Ready to share?”, first under “Share and export…” in the recipe's menu, or press its button at the top of the editor. It lists what a recipe site or a reader would miss — amounts, ingredients no step uses, servings and times, spelling, category, a photo — and changes nothing.

On the Recipes tab, open “Import recipes” (the import button; on a phone, in the + menu) and choose “Import from website”; paste the recipe's address and press “Read recipe”. Most large recipe sites publish their recipes in a standard form the app reads directly.

Check the import review, then press “Review in recipe editor”, make any changes and save. Nothing is stored until you save.

Some sites block automated readers. Press “Open in browser”, select the recipe on the page (Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+C), come back and press “Paste from clipboard & parse”.

When recipe pages open inside the app (Settings › Links), “Open in browser” shows the page there instead: press “Import this recipe” and the app reads the page as you see it.

You can also press “Copy AI transcription prompt”, give it with the page to an AI assistant you use, and paste its reply back in.

In “Import recipes” on the Recipes tab, choose “Import from recipe photo”. On Android, take a photo (the document scanner finds the card's edges) or choose one from the gallery; on Windows, choose an image file.

Trim and straighten it, and the text is read on this device — nothing is sent anywhere. Correct any misread words, press “Parse recipe”, check the review, then “Review in recipe editor” and save.

For handwriting or decorative fonts, “Copy AI transcription prompt” lets an AI assistant you use read the photo instead.

Red means “Fix required”: something likely to affect the quantities, such as an ingredient whose amount could not be read or a name that could not be made out. Fix it before saving; “Save anyway” is there if you are sure.

Amber means “Check suggested”: worth a look, but it does not stop you saving. Examples: a cook's measure such as "a handful", a spice with no amount (season to taste), a garnish or side that may be served alongside (mark it “Serve alongside”), or a package word left in the name.

“Show only items needing attention” and “Next check” take you through them one by one.

Every import is spell-checked against an English word list, the app's cooking-term library, the glossary and your own words. A confident fix is made for you and can be undone; otherwise you get suggestions.

If the word is right, add it to your own terms, and it will never be flagged again. Settings › My cooking terms lists them.

On Android, press Share on the post and pick McLearen Kitchen from the list; it goes on the import queue (“Import queue” in “Import recipes” on the Recipes tab), where the app reads the post's caption or description and makes the recipe from it. Press “Review” or “Import” on its card. When a caption holds no recipe — "recipe in the comments", "link in bio" — the card asks for the text: open the post, copy what you can and press “Paste the recipe”.

On Windows, “Add a link or text” on the queue takes a link or a copied recipe.

Yes. Export them in that app (Paprika, Mela, Crouton, Plan to Eat, Recipe Keeper, Copy Me That, MealMaster or Cooklang), then choose “From another recipe app” in “Import recipes” on the Recipes tab and pick the file. Notes, ratings and photos come along, and a recipe already in your library is skipped.

Press “Start cooking” on a recipe's page. Kitchen Mode shows one step at a time in large type and keeps the screen awake. Press “Done / next” to move on and “Finish cooking” at the end.

A step with a timer has a “Start” button for it. You can write notes and a cook log as you go. If you leave, the cook waits for you: “Resume cooking” on the recipe, or the Cooking Now list on the Recipes tab.

Step timers start from Kitchen Mode; for anything else, press “Add timer” on the Cook tab (Timers). A timer keeps running when you leave the screen and sounds an alarm when it is done; “Stop alarm” silences it.

To change a running timer — its name, total or time left — use its edit button, or long-press or right-click it. If the app was closed with timers running, it asks what to do with them when it opens again.

Two kinds, both over Bluetooth:

• The Govee H5198 four-probe thermometer. The app reads the temperatures it broadcasts over Bluetooth, so there is no connecting, no code and no Govee account. Keep it within Bluetooth range of the computer or phone. The Govee Home app can stay connected to it at the same time.
• Probes that use the Inkbird iBBQ Bluetooth protocol, which the app connects to.

Press the scan button on the Cook tab's Probes, then “Pair”. Link a probe to a timer to see its temperature next to the timer, set a target, and get an alert when it gets there. Inkbird support has not yet been tried with a real thermometer, so please report anything odd.

Not over Wi-Fi yet. Wi-Fi meat thermometers, Govee's included, send their readings to the maker's own internet service, not to anything on your home network, so there is nothing on the network for the app to talk to. The Govee H5198 also broadcasts over Bluetooth, and that is how the app reads it.

Reading Wi-Fi thermometers through the maker's service is being looked into.

In Kitchen Mode, when a timer is linked to a probe on a smoker recipe, the cook watch shows how fast the meat is climbing and when it should reach the pull temperature. It spots the stall and offers “I wrapped it”, and when the meat is done it offers “Pulled” and a rest timer. The wrap and pull times go into the cook's notes.

On a smoker recipe's page, “Plan the smoke: ready by…” works back from when you want to eat: when to light the smoker, put the meat on, expect the stall, pull it and rest it, with reminder timers for each.

It is a rule of thumb from the cut, the weight and the pit temperature. The meat is done when it is probe tender, not when the clock says so.

A note of how a cook went: stars, what to do differently next time, and for a smoker recipe the wood, the fuel, the weather and how the pit ran. Open it with the “Cook log” button in Kitchen Mode, or choose “Cook log” when you finish.

Every cook, with its log and notes, is listed under Cooking History on the recipe's page, and the smoke planner shows the last one.

A calculator for kitchen measures: teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, fluid ounces, pints, quarts, gallons, millilitres and litres; ounces, pounds, grams and kilograms; and °F and °C. It converts volume to volume and weight to weight — cups to grams needs the ingredient's density, so it is left out. It is under Convert on the Cook tab, and Kitchen Mode and the recipe page have a button for it too.

On the recipe's page, press “Add all ingredients to shopping list”. Everything goes on except pantry staples you have in stock and things assumed on hand, such as salt and black pepper. Amounts are added to lines already on the list.

If the pantry already has some of the ingredients, “Add only the missing ingredients” adds just the rest and holds what you have for this recipe.

Adding only the missing ingredients holds what the pantry already has for that recipe, so another recipe does not count on it too. Finishing the cook uses it up.

If you will not make the recipe after all, open the item's menu on the Pantry tab and choose Free from (the recipe).

A pantry staple you always keep, such as flour or olive oil. While it is in stock, adding a recipe leaves it off the shopping list. When it runs out, it goes on the list — and finishing a cook that uses it up puts it there for you.

They are assumed on hand. Settings › Assumed on hand holds the list — add or remove anything. Speciality salts and peppers, such as smoked salt or pink peppercorns, are still added.

The list names what you buy. Measuring and preparation words (packed, chopped, softened) are left off, and a choice between kinds of one thing (light or dark, red or green) goes in the line's notes.

If you call two things by different names, Settings › My ingredient names & aisles tells the app they are the same, and where you like them filed.

Yes, at a Kroger-family store. Choose your store in Settings › Stores › Kroger, then press the store button at the top of the shopping list to sort by its aisles.

The app asks before looking items up (“Look up”, or “Always look up new lines” from the menu to stop asking), shows its progress, can pause, and keeps going if you leave the page. If a line is matched to the wrong product, choose “Wrong store match” from its menu.

Yes, at a Kroger-family store. With your store chosen in Settings › Stores › Kroger, a recipe's page shows about what its ingredients cost there, a pack of each, and the button below it checks the prices the app does not have yet. The meal plan shows the week's total the same way.

It is an estimate from the store's shelf prices (the sale price while there is one): a teaspoon from a jar still counts the whole jar.

Send the items to a store's page: “Shop all at Kroger” sends everything open on My list to your Shop all store, and “Send to a store…” sends the items you tick. On the store's page, the arrow button on a line searches that store for it; tick it once it is in your cart there. When the order is placed, press “Order done” — the ticked items go into the pantry and off the list.

Settings › Stores chooses which stores appear and keeps your ZIP code and the store you use at each. A store's affiliate tracking link goes in the second box of its pencil; exported recipe pages always use plain links.

It can fill your Kroger cart: link your Kroger account once (Kroger's own sign-in), then press “Add all to Kroger cart” on the Kroger page. Kroger lets apps add to a cart but not place an order, so you pick the time slot and pay at Kroger (“Open Kroger cart”), then press “Order done”.

Tick a line to mark it purchased; mark everything purchased at once from the top of the list (with “Undo”). Move purchased to pantry puts them in the pantry, and Clear purchased takes them off the list.

In one database file on this device. On Windows it is mclearen_kitchen.sqlite in your Documents folder, and the app's log is in Documents\McLearen Kitchen\logs. On Android it is in the app's private storage, which is removed if the app is uninstalled.

Settings › App diagnostics opens the log folder and checks the database.

On the Recipes tab, open ⋮, choose “Export library JSON” and then With Photos or Without Photos. That file is your backup — keep it somewhere safe, such as a USB stick or cloud storage. On the other device, or after reinstalling, open “Import recipes”, choose “Import from a file” and pick the file to add its recipes to that device.

The export holds your recipes and their photos. The pantry, shopping list, timers and settings stay on the device they were made on.

To move everything, with your cooks and notes, to your own other phone or computer, choose “McLearen Kitchen file…” in the same dialog and then “Me, on my other device”; opening it there adds the recipes, or brings the ones it already has up to date.

Online backup of recipes and settings, kept on a McLearen Kitchen server, is planned for a later version.

Not yet. Each device keeps its own recipes, pantry and shopping list. Export the library on one and import it on the other to share recipes. Online backup through a McLearen Kitchen server is planned.

For one recipe, “Save as a McLearen Kitchen file” (its menu › “Share and export…”), with “Me, on my other device”, carries every version, its photo and your cooks with their notes; opening the file on the other device adds the recipe, or updates the copy it already has.

At home, Kitchen Link brings recipes straight from your PC to your phone over your Wi-Fi, with your notes, cooks and photos: link the phone once in Settings › Kitchen Link, then use “Import recipes” › “From my PC” whenever you want the PC's newer recipes.

Open the recipe, choose ⋮ › “Share and export…” › “Save as a McLearen Kitchen file” and pick “Someone else”. The file holds every version of the recipe and its photo, but not your notes, cooks or favorites. Send it to your friend by email, message or Quick Share; in the app they open “Import recipes” › “Import from a file” and pick it. If they already have a recipe of the same name, the app says so before anything is added.

On an Android phone they can also share the file to McLearen Kitchen — from Files, Gmail or Quick Share — and it waits in the import queue with “Open the file”. On Windows, a file a phone sent with Quick Share is listed when they choose “Import from a file”.

Quicker: ⋮ › “Share and export…” › “Share…” › “A McLearen Kitchen file” sends it from your device's share sheet — Quick Share, a message or email — with no file to find afterwards. For a friend without the app, “A file for other recipe apps” goes to Paprika, AnyList and others, and “The recipe card” is a page any phone or computer opens.

A friend without the app can open a link instead: ⋮ › “Share and export…” › “Share…” › “A link anyone can open” shows a QR code their phone's camera reads, and the page lasts 30 days.

For someone who should see your notes too, “A private link” seals the recipe with your notes and cooks on this device; only someone with the whole link can open it, for 7 days, and McLearen Kitchen imports it from “Import from website”.

The app and its features are the same. Photo import differs: Android uses the camera with Google's document scanner, or the gallery, and reads the text with Google ML Kit on the phone; Windows reads an image file with Windows' own text recognition and a reading model built into the app.

Thermometers need a device with Bluetooth. Phone screens show the tabs along the bottom; wide windows show them down the side.

Yes. Recipe pages open inside the app unless you pick another way, with “Import this recipe” at the bottom. Settings › Links sets how each kind of link opens: on Windows in a window of its own or in your browser; on a phone or tablet in the site's own app, as a sheet over the app, or in your browser. On Windows, hold Ctrl as you click a link to open it in your default browser instead.

Settings › Send feedback. Write what you did and what you saw, and the app opens your mail app with the message addressed to the development team (support@mkaapp.com), the app version, your platform and the last lines of the app log already filled in; press Send there. Nothing is sent by the app itself, and the log carries only the screens you visited and any errors — no recipes and no account details. If no mail app answers, the message is copied so you can paste it anywhere.

The whole log is in Settings › App diagnostics, with a button that opens its folder, if you want to attach it.