Cooking assistance device and a combination thereof with a microwave oven

A cooking apparatus comprising:

• a microwave oven having a source of microwave energy;
• a memory for storing standard menu data representing a list of materials and quantity of each of said materials for a predetermined number of servings and standard heating pattern data representing a power level and an operating time of said microwave energy source for said predetermined number of servings;
• a data entry unit for manually entering into said memory quantity data representing a desired number of servings to be prepared;
• a printer;
• a power control unit for controlling the power level and operating time of said microwave energy source in response to stored and manually entered data applied thereto;
• and
• a data processing unit including:
• means responsive to said manually entered quantity data for converting said standard menu data into actual menu data representing a list of materials and quantity of each of said materials for said desired number of servings and converting said standard heating pattern data into actual heating pattern data representing a power level and an operating time of said microwave energy source for said desired number of servings;
• means for converting said actual menu data into corresponding print data and applying the print data to said printer to provide a printout of said list of materials and quantity of each said material for said desired number of servings according to which a user prepares food;
• means for writing said actual heating pattern data into said memory;
• and
• means for reading said actual heating pattern data out of said memory into said power control unit when said food is placed in said oven.