Self-hosted recipe planner: recipes, AI agents, and grocery automation

Intro

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I have been using meal kit subscriptions on and off for a while, and honestly? The recipes are fine, but the subscription model is annoying. I do not always want three meals a week. Sometimes I want five. Sometimes I want to cook from my own recipes. And I definitely do not want to pay for stuff I could automate myself (famous last words).

So I am building my own alternative. The plan is simple:

1. Self-host a recipe library with Tandoor Recipes
2. Connect an AI agent (Remy, via OpenClaw) that can find recipes, plan meals, and build shopping lists
3. Automate the last mile — from shopping list to grocery cart, so the whole loop runs itself

What we are building

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The full stack looks like this:

• Tandoor Recipes — the recipe library, meal planner, and ingredient manager (self-hosted, Docker)
• OpenClaw + Remy — an AI agent that connects to Tandoor via MCP, finds recipes, plans the week, and manages shopping lists
• Bring! — shopping list app that Remy writes to via an MCP server
• Optional: grocery automation — pre-fill a cart at a local store (work in progress)

1. Set up Tandoor

   Part 1

   Recipe Library

   Deploy Tandoor Recipes with Docker Compose, configure the reverse proxy, and import your first recipes. The foundation for everything else.
2. Connect the AI agent

   Part 2

   OpenClaw + Remy

   Set up the Remy agent in OpenClaw, connect it to Tandoor and Bring! via MCP, and start chatting with your recipe assistant on Matrix.
3. Automate the loop

   Part 3

   Full automation

   Wire everything together: ask Remy for a weekly plan, have it generate a deduplicated shopping list, and (optionally) pre-fill a grocery cart.

Prerequisites

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You do not need all of these to follow along, but the full setup assumes:

• A server with Docker (I use a Ubuntu VM on Proxmox)
• A domain name and reverse proxy (I use Nginx)
• An OpenClaw gateway with at least one agent configured

If you do not have OpenClaw yet, start with the OpenClaw setup guide.

All entries in this series

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