Adding Recippes

ithacaborn

Hi,

When you make something for dinner (or any meal, actually) and want to accurately capture it in MFP, do you put it in the recipe section even if you might not make it again? It seems that the recipe section could quickly become overrun with one-time recipes or recipes that might only be on the menu once or twice a year.

I'm wondering how you use this section.

Thanks.

Chip

AnnPT77

I use recipes only for multi-serving multi-ingredient things. Since that's not how I usually cook, I don't accumulate massive numbers of recipes. I put the date (or at least year/month) in the beginning of the recipe title, so it's easy to ignore old ones.

I don't cook for a family, just for myself, which will make a difference. I'd probably use the recipe feature more if I cooked for a family.

If I make a one-time multi-ingredient thing, I just log the individual ingredients as my meal on the day, and that's it.

If I find I'm repeating the same general multi-ingredient thing, even if there are slight changes in amounts or ingredients, I save it as a meal using the meal feature. When you log a saved meal, it copies all the ingredients into your daily diary, and you can adjust amounts or add/delete a few ingredients as needed. For example, if I were to make enchiladas regularly, I'd put the tortillas, sauce, salsa, protein, cheese, veggies, etc. in a meal. If I use different cheeses at different times, they could all be in the saved meal, then I delete the ones I don't use in a particular case once the meal is in the day's diary.

I think different people will use the features differently, though, depending on cooking habits.

ithacaborn

Hi AnnPT77,

When I'm making something just for me, I do it like you do - add the ingredients in to the meal of the day. But there are three of us in the family and that's what I'm trying to figure out.

But, I may have to look at using meals more for things I make for myself, typically breakfast and lunch items, on a regular basis.

Thanks.

Chip

kshama2001

ithacaborn wrote: »

Hi AnnPT77,

When I'm making something just for me, I do it like you do - add the ingredients in to the meal of the day. But there are three of us in the family and that's what I'm trying to figure out.

But, I may have to look at using meals more for things I make for myself, typically breakfast and lunch items, on a regular basis.

Thanks.

Chip

Hi Chip,

Yes, I use Meals (or just individual ingredients) for meals that are just for myself and Recipes for meals that my partner is eating as well.

I periodically go through the old recipes and purge ones that aren't keepers.

I'll also edit them. I'll often log the original version before editing to see how things changed. The chicken/rice casserole I made this week had a number of different ingredients than the version I started in 2018. Hilariously, I ended up with the EXACT number of calories per serving (although this week's was lower fat and higher protein.)

no1racefan2

I use Recipes for most dinner meals because those are typically for my spouse and I, and he does most of the cooking. We like to use a lot of actual recipes from Pinterest, so I'll import it into Recipes (coolest feature about Recipes!) and then tweak the ingredients with the actual items/amounts that we are using.

Basically I use Recipes for actual recipes, even if we won't make it again. Anything that's not an actual 'recipe', like if I'm having yogurt with berries and honey for breakfast, I usually log individually or sometimes I save it as a Meal.

I do go through my Recipes periodically and delete some that I'm fairly certain we won't make again.

yirara

I cook a lot of different recipes, often for more than one day as I live alone. I don't use the meal or recipe section most of the time. What I do:

Breakfast and lunch are mostly the same, with a few changes (like different fruit or different brand of bread). Then I just swipe and add the same as the previous day and adjust where needed. Simples.

For dinners I add all ingredients in grams that I use. While cooking I make small adjustments to figure out how many meals I am cooking. If the total per day comes up as a bit too high I use a bit less rice or pasta in the end. Or add a larger quantity of whatever and eat this an additional day. Now I have the whole meal in my diary for say 3 day and I see the total calories come up at 1800 calories, thus 600 calories per meal. Perfect. Now I divide all the amounts in grams by 3 and have the calories for just that one day. I can simply copy this the following day again by swiping in the app. And if I freeze the leftover meals I put a note on the box with the date I first ate it, and can then retrieve the calories and ingredients from that day in MFP.

Yeah, this is possibly a bit more complicated, but I cook so many different things, often with so many different ingredients that there's no point in saving meals.

yirara

On that note: it would be brilliant to have the option to divide/multiply all ingredients in one meal section of a day. Would make things quicker. But I might be the only person using the diary this way.

AnnPT77

yirara wrote: »

I cook a lot of different recipes, often for more than one day as I live alone. I don't use the meal or recipe section most of the time. What I do:

Breakfast and lunch are mostly the same, with a few changes (like different fruit or different brand of bread). Then I just swipe and add the same as the previous day and adjust where needed. Simples.

For dinners I add all ingredients in grams that I use. While cooking I make small adjustments to figure out how many meals I am cooking. If the total per day comes up as a bit too high I use a bit less rice or pasta in the end. Or add a larger quantity of whatever and eat this an additional day. Now I have the whole meal in my diary for say 3 day and I see the total calories come up at 1800 calories, thus 600 calories per meal. Perfect. Now I divide all the amounts in grams by 3 and have the calories for just that one day. I can simply copy this the following day again by swiping in the app. And if I freeze the leftover meals I put a note on the box with the date I first ate it, and can then retrieve the calories and ingredients from that day in MFP.

Yeah, this is possibly a bit more complicated, but I cook so many different things, often with so many different ingredients that there's no point in saving meals.

I assume you know that if you save something (total ingredients) as a meal, you can then log 0.33 (or whatever fraction) of the meal (in either app or web MFP)?

yirara

AnnPT77 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

I cook a lot of different recipes, often for more than one day as I live alone. I don't use the meal or recipe section most of the time. What I do:

Breakfast and lunch are mostly the same, with a few changes (like different fruit or different brand of bread). Then I just swipe and add the same as the previous day and adjust where needed. Simples.

For dinners I add all ingredients in grams that I use. While cooking I make small adjustments to figure out how many meals I am cooking. If the total per day comes up as a bit too high I use a bit less rice or pasta in the end. Or add a larger quantity of whatever and eat this an additional day. Now I have the whole meal in my diary for say 3 day and I see the total calories come up at 1800 calories, thus 600 calories per meal. Perfect. Now I divide all the amounts in grams by 3 and have the calories for just that one day. I can simply copy this the following day again by swiping in the app. And if I freeze the leftover meals I put a note on the box with the date I first ate it, and can then retrieve the calories and ingredients from that day in MFP.

Yeah, this is possibly a bit more complicated, but I cook so many different things, often with so many different ingredients that there's no point in saving meals.

I assume you know that if you save something (total ingredients) as a meal, you can then log 0.33 (or whatever fraction) of the meal (in either app or web MFP)?

Yes, I know. It's just that I'm unlikely to cook this again. I also know that I can delete meals again. My meals section is just totally messy and often I don't find anything back there due to using names in many different languages, meals having different names in different regions or countries, etc.

lynn_glenmont

ithacaborn wrote: »

Hi,

When you make something for dinner (or any meal, actually) and want to accurately capture it in MFP, do you put it in the recipe section even if you might not make it again? It seems that the recipe section could quickly become overrun with one-time recipes or recipes that might only be on the menu once or twice a year.

I'm wondering how you use this section.

Thanks.

Chip

As others have said, I only use recipe for things that make multiple servings, whether that means multiple meals for me and multiple people dividing the dish among theml

In addition to purging recipes, as some have mentioned, I edit recipes I don't expect to use again for similar recipes that use a lot of the same ingredients, so I only have to search for the new ingredients in the database. I either delete the ingredients that were in the old version but not in the new, or I set the quantity to a very small number, like 0.001, so that they have no meaningful effect on the nutrition of the recipe, but are still there if I edit the recipe again and need those ingredients -- I just adjust the quantity again, rather than search the database for them.