Accurately measuring a recipe

TexasJade
TexasJade Posts: 68 Member
edited November 25 in Health and Weight Loss
Two issues...

There are is a good reason I eat plain and don't cook often. I made hamburger steak, mash potatoes, corn on the cob, and peaches today. It really is not an in depth meal but the weighing each item while cooking completely wore me out (makes me not want to cook meals and may end up leading me to getting off course because I can't imagine keeping that up for family meals) and in the end didn't prove helpful because apparently, I do not know how to correctly figure a serving for a recipe, which brings me to my next issue.

The mashed potatoes...I thought I was doing enough by measuring the potatoes and Earth Balance in grams and milk in mls. I thought I would have been able to enter all that into the builder and weigh my portion and enter it and it would figure it. I have no idea how many portions the dish was. Was I supposed to have weighed the whole dish when finished and divide the calories or is there an easier way that I am not seeing? I am feeling really disheartened because I don't know how I could continue to weigh everything out while cooking and if I had made more than one item with mutiple ingredients it would have been way worse.

Replies

  • Protranser
    Protranser Posts: 517 Member
    Create the recipe, set servings to 1. Weigh all the ingredients and log them all. When you finish cooking, weigh the finished recipe in grams. Edit the recipe and change servings from 1 to the total weight you just took.

    When weighing your portion, log the weight in grams as the amount of servings you're eating
  • TexasJade
    TexasJade Posts: 68 Member
    Protranser wrote: »
    Create the recipe, set servings to 1. Weigh all the ingredients and log them all. When you finish cooking, weigh the finished recipe in grams. Edit the recipe and change servings from 1 to the total weight you just took.

    When weighing your portion, log the weight in grams as the amount of servings you're eating

    Thank you, thank you! That will help.

    Do people just keep meals simple or is it common to be making more than one multiple item dish? It just seemed to take a while. I have gotten used to weighing my personal meals, like a single serving of oatmeal or an apple but this really wore me out.
  • VykkDraygoVPR
    VykkDraygoVPR Posts: 465 Member
    TexasJade wrote: »
    Protranser wrote: »
    Create the recipe, set servings to 1. Weigh all the ingredients and log them all. When you finish cooking, weigh the finished recipe in grams. Edit the recipe and change servings from 1 to the total weight you just took.

    When weighing your portion, log the weight in grams as the amount of servings you're eating

    Thank you, thank you! That will help.

    Do people just keep meals simple or is it common to be making more than one multiple item dish? It just seemed to take a while. I have gotten used to weighing my personal meals, like a single serving of oatmeal or an apple but this really wore me out.

    I usually keep meals simple, but that's just because neither I, nor my sister, want to cook much after work. When I do complex meals, I typically just weigh the ingredients, and write it in a notepad. When I get a chance (say if something is baking, or boiling for a while), I enter the recipe in to the app. I add the weight after it's done. In all, it just adds a minute or two to prep.

    Just be mindful of the weight of the container you are using. Soups and such aren't so bad, since you can always move them around easily. This is the step I usually forget. Be smarter than me, it will save headaches later. ;)
  • soulofgrace
    soulofgrace Posts: 175 Member
    Protranser wrote: »
    Create the recipe, set servings to 1. Weigh all the ingredients and log them all. When you finish cooking, weigh the finished recipe in grams. Edit the recipe and change servings from 1 to the total weight you just took.

    When weighing your portion, log the weight in grams as the amount of servings you're eating

    Genius! Thanks. :)
  • MissJay75
    MissJay75 Posts: 768 Member
    I tend to cook most of the same things. But once I have entered a recipe into MFP, I never have to do it again. Just weigh and log my serving.

    The way it was explained above is a great way to do it. I have a similar method. Let's say the meatloaf I made weighed 20 ounces, and when I created the recipe I said it yields 6 servings. I divide 20/6 to get a serving size of 3.33 ounces. So that's how much I dish up on my plate. If I am extra hungry, and dish myself 5 ounces - I divide 5 by 3.33 to get a serving size of 1.5 to log.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    I eat the same thing almost every night :) I don't have much patience for the recipe builder but I really should start using it.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    edited October 2015
    If I'm eating all the servings, I may weigh the finished product, enter it in grams and then either weigh out each serving to the gram. I may also make the whole thing 1 serving and then enter about how much each serving is. If there will be four servings that are about the same, I'll make them all .25 and save myself the trouble of weighing each one. If five, it'll be .2. Etc. In the end, it's working out to the total, anyway.

    If I'm sharing, it has to all get weighed and entered in grams.

    YES, logging makes cooking a much bigger chore. If you're used to adding however much of something you add until it looks good and then adjusting for taste, it makes cooking a sad nightmare. People who just use recipes and eat the result will have a much easier time, but it's still a pain to weigh finished products.

    It's all very annoying. But it works.
  • Protranser
    Protranser Posts: 517 Member
    Oh my, the math! :'(
This discussion has been closed.

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