Does anyone else find themselves sticking to simpler recipes just to avoid the hassle of logging?

toxikon

This is just a light-hearted observation, wondering if anyone else can relate.

I love to cook and before calorie counting, I'd always add dashes of this and that, use lots of ingredients and adjust to taste as I went along.

Now - knowing I'll need to input the meal into my diary (or create the recipe) - I tend to seek out really simple recipes. When I come across a recipe that has 20+ ingredients, I groan and move along.

I'll only do a "complex" recipe if I know I'll be making a huge batch (like soup, for example), because then at least I'll only have to input it once.

kristen8000

Yes, I do this too. Another reason I do this is the long recipes require me to buy ingredients that I may never use again...our dinners are usually a simple meat, veg (roasted or steamed) and a starch. I love cooking too and will experiment every once in a while, but normally I do simple food.

I also find myself researching recipes, and figuring out how to use the "basis" of the recipe and altering it to make it easier/less caloric. Not so much by using low fat/low calorie versions, but to cut out some things...

crystalewhite

Oh for sure! I find that I just measure out some raw veggies on my plate instead of doubling, adding a little oil and seasoning and roasting them, and then making sure I just have my half.

quiksylver296

Yes! Or bowing out altogether and just having a sandwich!

livingleanlivingclean

I rarely eat meat with bones because of this...
And generally there's only two of us so we don't do roasts. We do "roast- not - roast" which involves roast vegetables (easy to weigh and roast separately) with gravy and individual steaks.

I can be pedantic with logging (especially when comp prepping) and bolognese/mixed dishes are cooked in two pots with different quantities of everything for me and my husband.

Mycophilia

I deal with this by eating the same set of meals every day for days/weeks before changing something. That way I only have to log everything once when I make those infrequent changes.

toxikon

Mycophilia wrote: »

I deal with this by eating the same set of meals every day for days/weeks before changing something. That way I only have to log everything once when I make those infrequent changes.

Oh man, I wish I could do this. After 2 days of the same dinner, I'm totally sick of it.

Need2Exerc1se

No. I had that same problem but cooking won with me.

evilpoptart63

I do the same thing. The most complicated meal I regularly eat is a salad haha. The thought of trying to log individual items when they are all thrown into the same pot/pan and figure out my serving is enough to turn me off from eating it.

Lounmoun

toxikon wrote: »

This is just a light-hearted observation, wondering if anyone else can relate.

I love to cook and before calorie counting, I'd always add dashes of this and that, use lots of ingredients and adjust to taste as I went along.

Now - knowing I'll need to input the meal into my diary (or create the recipe) - I tend to seek out really simple recipes. When I come across a recipe that has 20+ ingredients, I groan and move along.

I'll only do a "complex" recipe if I know I'll be making a huge batch (like soup, for example), because then at least I'll only have to input it once.

I cook about the same but have entered tons of the recipes (3 years worth) I use with the recipe builder. Logging them is not time consuming now. I might make new stuff less often but that may also be because I have so many recipes to rotate through already.

Exact amounts of low calorie ingredients like herbs and spices are less of a problem than dumping in unknown quantities of oil, butter, milk, cheese. If you are not a strict recipe follower you might at least want to keep track of higher calorie ingredients added.

sardelsa

I used to when I was logging. I would eat certain things out of convenience. I love to cook and wing recipes and not add exact amounts of ingredients..it was dragging me down. Now that I don't log I don't have that issue.

lemurcat12

I can't (well, don't like to) cook from recipes. I read recipes for inspiration and adapt them or wing it when cooking.

I did eat pretty simply most of the time I was logging, but that's common for me -- I never shorted things like garlic, herbs and spices, so on, but I didn't log those. When I use lots of different ingredients it's usually vegetables that are low cal, and I don't really find logging them (I weigh when chopping) to add a burden to my cooking, so I was never tempted to cut back on the amount I used. In fact, if anything, logging made me conscious if I was getting into a rut and having the same things over and over, so I changed it up (to an extent, a lot of what I make is dictated by what is in season).

I was always willing to skip logging perfectly if the ingredients in question were super low cal (if I did a mix of greens I might laze out and just log them all under one of them), and when doing a meal that broke into 4 roughly equal amounts I'll divide my measurements by four rather than make a recipe (I find the recipe builder clunky and most of the ingredients I use a lot are in my frequent or recent).

flippy1234

Yes, but I also believe in keeping things simple anyway. Too many ingredients or too complicated to make...forget it. I think keeping things simple is better for weight loss too.

amusedmonkey

I do find myself gravitating to recipes with fewer/simpler ingredients or recipes I already saved and know the calories for. Sometimes when something with many ingredients looks particularly enticing I go through the trouble of creating a recipe, but then it's there and is added to my recipe arsenal I have no trouble cooking it again if I wanted to.

Now this may sound excessive or obsessive, but I would rather do almost the exact weight of stuff in my recorded recipes when I prepare the same recipe again, so if something is larger I cut off parts until it's close enough in weight (any cut off parts go into whatever I'm cooking for the dog if it's a safe food, so I'm not wasting anything). It's just a quirk.

HeidiCooksSupper

I sometimes skip logging extremely low calorie items like spices & dried herbs -- especially when I am standing over a pot of something and adding flavors on the fly as I taste and thing what it needs. I also don't log those itty bitty tastes since I'm usually tasting mostly the liquid of whatever it is. Last night's soup, for example, got a last minute addition of Penzey's Tsar Dust to round out the taste.

TonyB0588

toxikon wrote: »

This is just a light-hearted observation, wondering if anyone else can relate.

I love to cook and before calorie counting, I'd always add dashes of this and that, use lots of ingredients and adjust to taste as I went along.

Now - knowing I'll need to input the meal into my diary (or create the recipe) - I tend to seek out really simple recipes. When I come across a recipe that has 20+ ingredients, I groan and move along.

I'll only do a "complex" recipe if I know I'll be making a huge batch (like soup, for example), because then at least I'll only have to input it once.

Don't want to be a spoil-sport, but as you said this is a light-hearted observation, I'll tell you what one of mt pet peeves are.

Too much of modern day eating is focused around elaborate recipes. I had a fairly simple upbringing in my parents house, and the simplicity has (mostly) continued now in my own home. I sometimes eat food in other people's homes as well, and the differences are apparent!!

Why did our grandparents' greens or vegetables evolve into today's salads with bacon, cheese, fruit, and oil in it?
Why did simple starchy foods become casseroles covered in cheese and dripping in oil?
Why does meat have to be done in a pie with pastry on top?

When I eat other people's lovely dishes, I usually guess the portion sizes when I come home to update my log, but sometimes I'm not even sure what I ate!!

toxikon

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I do find myself gravitating to recipes with fewer/simpler ingredients or recipes I already saved and know the calories for. Sometimes when something with many ingredients looks particularly enticing I go through the trouble of creating a recipe, but then it's there and is added to my recipe arsenal I have no trouble cooking it again if I wanted to.

Now this may sound excessive or obsessive, but I would rather do almost the exact weight of stuff in my recorded recipes when I prepare the same recipe again, so if something is larger I cut off parts until it's close enough in weight (any cut off parts go into whatever I'm cooking for the dog if it's a safe food, so I'm not wasting anything). It's just a quirk.

I kind of have the opposite quirk - I don't like wasting food, so my ingredient portions are always different even for the same recipe. If I buy an onion for a recipe, I'll use the whole thing.

So if I log a quiche recipe, then a month later, go make the 'same' quiche, I'll have to adjust all the ingredients again, so I end up just doing an entirely new recipe each time, hah.

JillianRumrill

I'm pretty good up until dinner...my hubby loves to cook. I pre-log in the morning or even a day or two before but with dinner it's always up in the air until 4 PM. Which scares me b/c HOW MANY CALORIES IS IT GONNA BE?!

toxikon

JillianRumrill wrote: »

I'm pretty good up until dinner...my hubby loves to cook. I pre-log in the morning or even a day or two before but with dinner it's always up in the air until 4 PM. Which scares me b/c HOW MANY CALORIES IS IT GONNA BE?!

I hear ya. I have no issue logging my intake at work, but when dinner-time rolls around, it's a lot harder. I'm the cooker in the household, but I usually don't decide what's for dinner until I stop by the grocery store on the way home. I've never had much success pre-logging dinner because I have no idea what I'm making for dinner until I'm picking out the ingredients, haha.

amusedmonkey

toxikon wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I do find myself gravitating to recipes with fewer/simpler ingredients or recipes I already saved and know the calories for. Sometimes when something with many ingredients looks particularly enticing I go through the trouble of creating a recipe, but then it's there and is added to my recipe arsenal I have no trouble cooking it again if I wanted to.

Now this may sound excessive or obsessive, but I would rather do almost the exact weight of stuff in my recorded recipes when I prepare the same recipe again, so if something is larger I cut off parts until it's close enough in weight (any cut off parts go into whatever I'm cooking for the dog if it's a safe food, so I'm not wasting anything). It's just a quirk.

I kind of have the opposite quirk - I don't like wasting food, so my ingredient portions are always different even for the same recipe. If I buy an onion for a recipe, I'll use the whole thing.

So if I log a quiche recipe, then a month later, go make the 'same' quiche, I'll have to adjust all the ingredients again, so I end up just doing an entirely new recipe each time, hah.

Yeah, like I said it's just an obsessive quirk, not necessary at all. I doubt 10 grams of carrot or 30 grams of chicken would make that much of a difference, especially that I weigh my entire recipe afterwards so any difference is close enough by having a heavier/lighter end result. Keeping an eye on the most calorie dense stuff would be good enough and the recipe should end up close enough. Oddly I don't worry the slightest about food cooked by others and just guess at it, zero obsession. I guess it's a case of if I can control it I want to control it, but if I can't then fussing about it won't give me any more control than I already don't have.

ETA: if obsessing with numbers is as enjoyable to you as it is to me, you can do the same thing I do while doing your own thing - all you need to do is add the recipe, then add extras normally. For example if you used 200 grams of potatoes and it ends up being 300 the next time you make it, you could add 100 grams of potatoes as a standalone.

YosemiteSlamAK

I grew up on simple, so I tend to stay simple most of the time. I have utilized the recipe importer option on MFP to add things I've already made as well as find several new recipes online to try. Like some of the above I plan my meals around the in season vegetables.