"Non Ingredient" Ingredients for a Recipe

Borgbear
Borgbear Posts: 7 Member
in Recipes
When entering a recipe, and you have to log a "non ingredient" ingredient, how do you log it?

I'm making a recipe, and it calls for 3/4 cup of AP flour for dredging. That's a total of 330 calories for 3/4 cup. Maybe less than 1/8 of a cup is actually on the meat.

Another example-Potatoes will be boiled in Unsalted Beef broth(4 cups=135 calories) , just using the beef broth for flavor. I'm not using the broth after that.

Should I log it as is, reduce it or forget about it?

Replies

  • saraann4
    saraann4 Posts: 1,296 Member
    Good question...been wondering the same thing.
  • catinhounstooth
    catinhounstooth Posts: 11
    I'm also wondering about this...also with marinades. Bumping so hopefully someone can answer! :wink:

    Although with the flour, or other dredging ingredients, you could just measure what you have left after, and then only enter the difference?
  • Borgbear
    Borgbear Posts: 7 Member
    I'm also wondering about this...also with marinades. Bumping so hopefully someone can answer! :wink:

    Although with the flour, or other dredging ingredients, you could just measure what you have left after, and then only enter the difference?

    That's a wonderful idea. I will do that next time.
  • caraiselite
    caraiselite Posts: 2,631 Member
    use less flour to dredge it in ;D
    when i coat my chicken breasts in almond flour, i use every bit of it. and yes i log it.
  • chlorisaann
    chlorisaann Posts: 366 Member
    Great Question.... now I want to know too!!
  • delilah47
    delilah47 Posts: 1,658
    As far as the dredging goes, use the 3/4 cup of flour to dredge, then measure what's left over and subtract it from the 3/4 cup. Flour is too high in calories to ignore what you eat. The broth? I wouldn't bother. If you are using low fat/sodium broth, it hardly has any calories anyway.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,423 Member
    I usually take an estimate on things like flour - if i put one cup on a plate and use about a quarter of what is there, I'll enter 0.25 cups. Cooking things in stock is a bit trickier - again, I'd probably add a portion of the stock to the recipe but not all.

    I don't get too stressed about these things - all the numbers we are working with are estimates and I just do the best I can and hope that the under-estimates cancel get cancelled out by the over-estimates.

    Another suggestion for flour - usually if I have something that needs to be coated in flour before cooking, I'll add the flour to a plastic bag then add the meat (or whatever) and shake it all around. I only add a minimum amount of flour and if it doesn't seem like enough I'll add a little bit more. This way you are more likely to use most of the flour you have measured.
  • pamfm
    pamfm Posts: 93 Member
    I'm also wondering about this...also with marinades. Bumping so hopefully someone can answer! :wink:

    Although with the flour, or other dredging ingredients, you could just measure what you have left after, and then only enter the difference?

    That's a wonderful idea. I will do that next time.

    ^^^ This should work for cooking liquid and marinades, too. It'll make some extra dirty dishes, but see how much of the ingredient is left after you're done using it.

    But also, once you figure out how much you actually use, you can reduce the amount of each ingredient you waste next time!
    Sliced or chopped potatoes can be steamed, so if you cover the pot, you can definitely reduce the cooking liquid to a point where you'd only have to drain 1/2 cup at the end.

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