Jianhao's journal ·
My AI Grocery Routine: Dinner + Lunch in 30 Minutes
Weekend prep, AI grocery shopping, and about 30 minutes after work for dinner plus tomorrow’s lunch.
The part of cooking I wanted to make easier
I live in Toronto with my wife, and I enjoy cooking with her. I also like browsing snacks, new products and interesting things at the supermarket. But buying a week of meat and vegetables can feel like a chore: parking, finding everything and waiting at checkout eat up a chunk of the weekend.
Our routine combines AI shopping and weekend meal prep for two. The goal is about half an hour of finishing work after a workday for dinner and the next day’s lunches, not half an hour for the whole week of preparation.
Start with a recipe I already trust
I give an agent that knows my preferences and can use MCP a trusted video or recipe. For this example, all six dishes came from Brian Lagerstrom’s How I Cook 20 CRAVEABLE Meals in 1 HOUR. Brian has already organized the methods, order and experience; I save a transcript as a document so I can return to it while shopping, portioning and cooking.
Turn the plan into actual groceries
I tell the agent how many people and meals to plan for, our tastes, what we already have and how much time is available. It works out ingredient amounts and a shopping list, then uses PC Express MCP to search actual products at a local store. It checks package sizes, how many to buy and inventory before adding items to the cart. If something is out of stock, it proposes a substitute and asks whether I accept it before confirming the choice. The original graphic showed vegetables, eggs, milk, whole grains and fruit as an illustrative checklist, not the actual six-dish shopping list.
Estimate nutrition from what I actually buy
Product information can include nutrition details. Using the available data for the products and our planned portions, the agent estimates a week’s calories, protein and other nutrients against my targets. It can update the estimate when I confirm a substitution. This is an estimate based on available information and planned amounts, not a measurement or guaranteed outcome.
Do the preparation on the weekend
I review the cart, pay and book delivery to our home. On the weekend we prepare shared meat and vegetables together, divide them by intended use, label dates and plan storage and thawing. On workdays we finish cooking and assemble the meal. Four portions mean dinner for two that night and lunch for two the next day.
What I noted about delivery membership
These are the offer terms recorded in my original post and checked on 2026-10-16, not a claim that they are still available. At that time PC Express Pass normally cost CA$99.99 per year plus tax, with no delivery fee on eligible standard delivery orders of CA$30 or more. Eligible new users who had never subscribed to Pass could use code PASS for CA$29.99 plus tax for the first year. The recorded expiry was 2027-01-31, with automatic renewal afterward at the then-current annual rate.
A separate option was the PC Insiders World Elite Mastercard, which includes Pass; the card normally has a CA$120 annual fee. The introductory Pass discount and the card benefit are different options, so choose what suits the household. Check the Pass page and card benefit details for current terms.
Sources and original post
Adapted from my Xiaohongshu post, published October 15, 2026 in Toronto. Recipe credit: Brian Lagerstrom. The original social graphics were AI-generated illustrations; the illustrations here are English adaptations of those graphics.
This is part of how I use AI in everyday life in Toronto, Canada: meal prep, healthy meals for two, packed work lunches and PC Express.