An important warning: AI chatbots are prone to occasional mistakes. If someone in your family has an allergy or you take dietary restrictions seriously, be sure to triple-check its recommendations.

Parental leave made the effort manageable, but by late spring, we were both working 40-plus hours a week. Daycare provides morning and afternoon snacks for the three days a week she attends, but the other 29 meals a week are up to us. Prepping and freezing food on weekends is the most logical solution. But what do I make???

I have asked Claude for a bunch of pancake ideas. If they get my son to eat new foods, it could be one of AI’s greatest accomplishments yet.

There is no cod at the store—what are good substitutes? What is the difference between boiling and simmering? Why is the filling for these lentil-and-sweet-potato nuggets so mushy? AI knows the answers.

It is 8:15 on a Monday morning, and it is my turn to take my 20-month-old daughter to daycare. I have a phone meeting in 15 minutes, we have to leave right after, and I didn’t prepare anything for her lunch.

Ten minutes later, lunch is cooked and packed. And when my daughter comes home, most of her lunch has been eaten. Success!

He grew up eating stereotypical American kid food, like chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and plain pasta with red sauce. Now he is both a picky eater and a strong-willed adolescent who will take one bite of pretty much anything new I make, declare he doesn’t like it, and go hungry rather than give in.

After months of poking and prodding the technology, my favorite use is tackling the mundane and repetitive mental tasks people richer than me have long outsourced to other humans.

Toddlers eat five times a day, including snacks! My wife and I are committed to exposing our daughter to an array of healthy food in hopes she will have a wide palate.

When something sounds appealing, I ask for the full recipe. (Yes, I tried that sardine concoction. My daughter loved it.) Other times, it suggests shrimp-and-corn chowder or cottage-cheese pancakes, and I respectfully ask it to keep trying.

Sardines and oatmealToddlers eat five times a day, including snacks! My wife and I are committed to exposing our daughter to an array of healthy food in hopes she will have a wide palate. Parental leave made the effort manageable, but by late spring, we were both working 40-plus hours a week. Daycare provides morning and afternoon snacks for the three days a week she attends, but the other 29 meals a week are up to us. Prepping and freezing food on weekends is the most logical solution. But what do I make??? After wasting a lot of time, I asked Anthropic’s Claude and immediately realized that was the way I would be planning meals from now on. (You can feel free to try other chatbots.) I started off simple, asking Claude to help design a meal plan for a toddler. Then, in a continuing conversation, I have gotten more specific: • Food she can feed herself • No red meat • Simple preparation and short shopping lists • Easy to freeze and reheat Within a few seconds, it gave me 10 suggestions. Baked fish fingers with sweet-potato crust. Zucchini noodles with tomato sauce and chickpeas. The ideas appear to be infinite, and few are ones I would think of myself. I had never even heard of sardine-and-oatmeal patties before. When something sounds appealing, I ask for the full recipe. (Yes, I tried that sardine concoction. My daughter loved it.) Other times, it suggests shrimp-and-corn chowder or cottage-cheese pancakes, and I respectfully ask it to keep trying. When I don’t prepare enough food for the week and I am in a jam, I tell AI what I have on-hand and ask for emergency ideas. It is like a cookbook that rewrites itself to suit my desires. But even that is understating AI’s usefulness. Because unlike any cookbook or app, I can ask it questions. There is no cod at the store—what are good substitutes? What is the difference between boiling and simmering? Why is the filling for these lentil-and-sweet-potato nuggets so mushy? AI knows the answers. Toddler preferencesOf course, one thing AI can’t do is predict the vagaries of the toddler brain. Cheesy cauliflower and broccoli bake was a big hit, as evidenced by my daughter giddily declaring “yummy!" But when she took one bite of the baked salmon-and-vegetable risotto cups and started dropping the rest on the floor, I knew who to blame. AI doesn’t take it personally. Everything I have cooked for my daughter with AI is in one long digital conversation, which allows the bot and me to remember what I have made before and what she liked or didn’t. I pay $20 monthly for the premium version of Claude, so I won’t hit a cap on how many questions I can ask. An important warning: AI chatbots are prone to occasional mistakes. If someone in your family has an allergy or you take dietary restrictions seriously, be sure to triple-check its recommendations. I have recently started a new conversation with a bigger challenge: my 12-year-old son. He grew up eating stereotypical American kid food, like chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and plain pasta with red sauce. Now he is both a picky eater and a strong-willed adolescent who will take one bite of pretty much anything new I make, declare he doesn’t like it, and go hungry rather than give in. The other morning he had a bite of his sister’s almond-flour blueberry-zucchini pancake and declared he liked it, despite the presence of a vegetable he ostensibly detests. So now he is cautiously opening his mind to healthy pancakes as an alternative to Cheerios. I have asked Claude for a bunch of pancake ideas. If they get my son to eat new foods, it could be one of AI’s greatest accomplishments yet. Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com

When I don’t prepare enough food for the week and I am in a jam, I tell AI what I have on-hand and ask for emergency ideas. It is like a cookbook that rewrites itself to suit my desires. But even that is understating AI’s usefulness. Because unlike any cookbook or app, I can ask it questions.

Of course, one thing AI can’t do is predict the vagaries of the toddler brain. Cheesy cauliflower and broccoli bake was a big hit, as evidenced by my daughter giddily declaring “yummy!" But when she took one bite of the baked salmon-and-vegetable risotto cups and started dropping the rest on the floor, I knew who to blame. AI doesn’t take it personally.

The other morning he had a bite of his sister’s almond-flour blueberry-zucchini pancake and declared he liked it, despite the presence of a vegetable he ostensibly detests. So now he is cautiously opening his mind to healthy pancakes as an alternative to Cheerios.

You have probably heard about the brilliant things generative AI can create, from eerily realistic podcasts to Nobel Prize-winning protein analysis. A Pew Research Center survey from February found 23% of U.S. adults have used Open AI’s ChatGPT for work, for entertainment or to learn something new.

After wasting a lot of time, I asked Anthropic’s Claude and immediately realized that was the way I would be planning meals from now on. (You can feel free to try other chatbots.) I started off simple, asking Claude to help design a meal plan for a toddler. Then, in a continuing conversation, I have gotten more specific:

I enjoy cooking and am reasonably good at it. But I hate figuring out what to cook. Browsing through premium cooking apps to find the perfect recipe takes time and money. Googling is only useful if you know what you want. Even then, you usually get a page festooned with ads and autoplay videos. Numerous people have attested in Reddit posts and TikTok videos how good chatbots are at devising recipes and shopping lists on demand. So I decided to try AI.

Toddler preferencesOf course, one thing AI can’t do is predict the vagaries of the toddler brain. Cheesy cauliflower and broccoli bake was a big hit, as evidenced by my daughter giddily declaring “yummy!" But when she took one bite of the baked salmon-and-vegetable risotto cups and started dropping the rest on the floor, I knew who to blame. AI doesn’t take it personally. Everything I have cooked for my daughter with AI is in one long digital conversation, which allows the bot and me to remember what I have made before and what she liked or didn’t. I pay $20 monthly for the premium version of Claude, so I won’t hit a cap on how many questions I can ask. An important warning: AI chatbots are prone to occasional mistakes. If someone in your family has an allergy or you take dietary restrictions seriously, be sure to triple-check its recommendations. I have recently started a new conversation with a bigger challenge: my 12-year-old son. He grew up eating stereotypical American kid food, like chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and plain pasta with red sauce. Now he is both a picky eater and a strong-willed adolescent who will take one bite of pretty much anything new I make, declare he doesn’t like it, and go hungry rather than give in. The other morning he had a bite of his sister’s almond-flour blueberry-zucchini pancake and declared he liked it, despite the presence of a vegetable he ostensibly detests. So now he is cautiously opening his mind to healthy pancakes as an alternative to Cheerios. I have asked Claude for a bunch of pancake ideas. If they get my son to eat new foods, it could be one of AI’s greatest accomplishments yet. Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com

Everything I have cooked for my daughter with AI is in one long digital conversation, which allows the bot and me to remember what I have made before and what she liked or didn’t. I pay $20 monthly for the premium version of Claude, so I won’t hit a cap on how many questions I can ask.

Previously, this would cause a minor panic: What do we have in the refrigerator? What can I make quickly? Is it healthy? Has she eaten anything similar recently? Are any of these ingredients on the school’s list of forbidden allergens?

The ideas appear to be infinite, and few are ones I would think of myself. I had never even heard of sardine-and-oatmeal patties before.

“I need to make lunch for my daughter for daycare in a hurry. Here are some ingredients I have, but feel free to ask me if I have others," I tell Anthropic’s Claude chatbot. Mini egg muffins, it suggests. “That’ll take too long." Quick egg salad? “I don’t have any hard-boiled eggs." Scrambled-egg wrap? “Perfect. Tell me how to add some vegetables."