recipe building

fishshark
fishshark Posts: 1,886 Member
edited November 26 in Food and Nutrition
If I make things like soups, pasta, stews, and chilis etc. separately then my husbands. I want to start using the recipe builder but I have a question. Lets say I am making chili for dinner and I use the recipe builder and figure out my portions. I fill my bowl up with the amount, but I have like 80% more beans then the meat. Wont this change how many calories I am consuming? Apologize if this is a brain dead question.

Replies

  • alyssagb1
    alyssagb1 Posts: 353 Member
    If its chili or another stew/ soup, stir well before you serve your portion. That should make the mixture fairly uniform. If you don't feel comfortable with that, make yours completely separate. (Weigh/measure small amounts and log it as a different recipe) I usually go with the former.
  • RodaRose
    RodaRose Posts: 9,562 Member
    Maybe start with a very simple recipe with only three ingredients so you can see how the recipe builder works.
    We get better with these tools each time we use them.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    It's always harder with soups/stews/chili - "loose" recipes - than it is with casseroles and the like. I usually do what @alyssagb1 said - stir well, serve myself, and then choose not to fret what in the end are going to be pretty minor variations. There's no way to be 100% exact anyway, because you have no way to account for how much water steams off as you simmer the soup, or if Carrot 1 is more dense than Carrot 2 and therefore might have more nutrients packed into it than the other, etc, etc.

    Believe me, I get wanting to "get it right" or be as exact as possible. I'm like that too. But you have to choose where you're going to draw the line between "as exact as possible" and "driving yourself crazy" ;)
  • OyGeeBiv
    OyGeeBiv Posts: 733 Member
    Your portion should average out to the same ratio you input into the recipe builder.

    So if your recipe is 1000g beans and 500g meat, you should expect each serving to contain twice as much bean as meat, by weight. If your total recipe is 5 servings, each will have 200g beans and 100g meat. But there's other stuff in the recipe, so your serving won't be 300g total (it'll be more).

    What I do is make a batch of whatever, add all the ingredients to recipe builder, and tell recipe builder how many servings it is. Then I divide portions either by weight (weigh the whole batch and divide by number of servings), or by volume (measure the whole batch in cups/quarts and divide by the number of servings).

    The key is to measure the entire thing when you're done. There's no other way to account for what evaporates during cooking. (Easy way: weigh the empty pot before you start, weigh the full pot when you're done and subtract empty pot weight.)

    You can't really mix weight and volume measurements with each other. It skews if there's more water, for example.

    That said, if I make a batch of something more solid (like my lentil and rice casserole) I'll eyeball 4 servings. Being off by a few grams doesn't mean anything in that case because it's me eating all of it within a week or 2 anyway.

    TL:DR. What's in your bowl should have the same proportion that's in the pot.
  • rbakedq
    rbakedq Posts: 142 Member
    What @64crayons said, but I also put in the recipe title something like "Easy Black Bean Chili (1c ~ 260gr)".
  • fishshark
    fishshark Posts: 1,886 Member
    thanks everyone! this was all super helpful!
  • lbmarshall23
    lbmarshall23 Posts: 33 Member
    I was curious about this too, thank you all so much for your advice!
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