Recipes "within" Recipes

penguinmama87
penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
edited January 2023 in Recipes
This is perhaps a more technical "how to use MFP" type of question, but I would appreciate any insights, workarounds, etc.

I cook primarily from scratch for my entire household and use the MFP recipe function a lot, saving recipes with the weight as the number of servings. One issue I run into is using one recipe as part of another recipe, and I'm not sure the best way to be accurate in the new recipe.

For example, I have one text note saved to myself for pie crust, which I always make according to weight and there's very little variation every time I make it. Any time I make a pie, I just copy the list of ingredients for crust along with the filling so I can get reasonably accurate data for the nutrition of the pie, even if I made the crust weeks ago and stuck it in the freezer for later use. For pie this works because the crust is always the same size.

But what about something like a sauce? I make tomato sauce from scratch and the ingredients can change a lot, and I might not always use the same amount in a recipe. Ditto many other sauces, jams, breads, other leftovers I want to use up, etc.

I know I can create a food for personal use - at least I think I can - would I be able to retrieve this food for use in recipes or not?

If this something the Meals function can do (admittedly I have read a lot of explanations of how to use it and am still bewildered)?

For right now I often find a commercial database entry that is as similar as I can get to what I might make at home, and I just use that, but I know the accuracy is not going to be as good there, and in some cases may be wildly off.

I suppose, like my pie crust example, I could just math it out with every batch in a text note, and copy the ingredients but adjust the amounts based on the part of the whole. (Say I make 1000 g of pesto, and use 400 right away but freeze the other 600. If I take out 300 to use, I could copy the list of ingredients into the recipe but multiply by 0.3 to get the amounts for this specific new recipe. The math would be more annoying in most cases, but I could do it.)

Is your head spinning yet? Mine is!

(ETA: I know I've seen this discussed at various times before, but for whatever reason I couldn't find the threads while searching. I would happily read other threads on this too!)

Replies

  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    edited January 2023
    I share this problem and the only way I’ve found around it is as follows:

    The most common recipe I want to use as part of another recipe is the Italian Tomato Sauce I make in large batches that then is used in various other recipes for my meat eating family and for my vegetarian meals.

    When I make the sauce I edit the recipe in MFP every time to reflect exact quantities for that batch, and weigh in grams the finished batch. As you say, I enter that weight as the number of servings.

    Then when I want to include part of the batch in a different recipe (example - roasted veg lasagne) I ‘pretend’ to log the quantity of the Italian Sauce that I’m going to use to establish the calories in that, then use a generic database entry and fiddle with the serving size until the ‘answer’ matches the ‘question’ if that makes sense! The calories are then correct in my second recipe although I appreciate the macros may be a little off.

    It’s a compromise I have to make because there seems to be no more accurate way to do it!

    I do realise I’ve possibly just repeated your own solution in different words, but as you say, explaining the palaver makes your head spin a bit! 😂

    Edit to add: Oh and yes, I totally agree about the ‘Meals’ function. Despite seeing its uses and purpose explained several times I still don’t get it!
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »
    I share this problem and the only way I’ve found around it is as follows:

    The most common recipe I want to use as part of another recipe is the Italian Tomato Sauce I make in large batches that then is used in various other recipes for my meat eating family and for my vegetarian meals.

    When I make the sauce I edit the recipe in MFP every time to reflect exact quantities for that batch, and weigh in grams the finished batch. As you say, I enter that weight as the number of servings.

    Then when I want to include part of the batch in a different recipe (example - roasted veg lasagne) I ‘pretend’ to log the quantity of the Italian Sauce that I’m going to use to establish the calories in that, then use a generic database entry and fiddle with the serving size until the ‘answer’ matches the ‘question’ if that makes sense! The calories are then correct in my second recipe although I appreciate the macros may be a little off.

    It’s a compromise I have to make because there seems to be no more accurate way to do it!

    I do realise I’ve possibly just repeated your own solution in different words, but as you say, explaining the palaver makes your head spin a bit! 😂

    Edit to add: Oh and yes, I totally agree about the ‘Meals’ function. Despite seeing its uses and purpose explained several times I still don’t get it!

    Thank you so much! This is a little different than what I described, at least I think it is! :joy: But I think this could improve my accuracy over what I am doing now in some cases, without it being the headache I described at the end.

    And I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by meals! :D
  • TeresaWJ
    TeresaWJ Posts: 15 Member

    Yes, there is a way to copy your own recipe and use it as an ingredient in another recipe you are creating. Use the meals feature--here's how: First, go a day forward and use a blank meal space (delete entry when finished). Now, add your original recipe to that meal. Adjust ingredient amounts as desired for use in new recipe. Then, using quick tools, "remember" those ingredients as a meal. Use a unique name you can easily find later; this is a large database. Once this is done, you can go to Recipes and add a new recipe. Name your recipe, put your remembered meal name in "add ingredient" and scroll til you find your remembered meal. Click Add to the list of ingredients for your new recipe. Each ingredient for your remembered meal will be listed in your new recipe. Ingredients can be adjusted if needed, but each ingredient would need to be adjusted, of course. It would be simpler to make a remembered meal for varying portions, named appropriately (i.e. 1 cup, 1/4 cup, etc.). You can add a portion-adjusted remembered meal to a recipe more than once; ingredients will look weird long, but they will be added as many times as needed. But you can also add a specific portion needed of a remembered meal to your new recipe.

    A couple of things about remembered meals feature...

    Once named, a remembered meal can have ingredients changed, but not the name of the meal. To change ingredients, log remembered meal into diary, modify ingredients as desired, then remember meal and select "replace existing meal."

    A remembered meal can be used successfully instead of a recipe, especially if there is a unique ingredient which often changes. When logging a recipe, you cannot change an individual ingredient portion amount, only the portion amount for entire recipe can be changed. But you can do this in remembered meals because all ingredients are logged individually in your diary and, therefore, can be adjusted individually.

    I have found that remembered meals are best to use where a meal has an ingredient that changes brands occasionally. All peanut butters are not created equal, and when I change brands, it seems easier to log in the remembered meal, delete the peanut butter shown and add in the one being currently used. Alternately, of course, you can always "replace" an ingredient in your recipe. This can be tedious if the ingredient changes based on what is for sale each week.

    Unfortunately, I've had some experience where deleting a remembered meal also deleted the values in my diary. The meal ingredients were listed, just no values. But this does not always happen. Weird, but just something to be aware of that might impact your historical records.

    I have been using MFP for over 10 years and I just learned this trick of copying a meal into a recipe. Hope it helps others.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    TeresaWJ wrote: »
    Yes, there is a way to copy your own recipe and use it as an ingredient in another recipe you are creating. Use the meals feature--here's how: First, go a day forward and use a blank meal space (delete entry when finished). Now, add your original recipe to that meal. Adjust ingredient amounts as desired for use in new recipe. Then, using quick tools, "remember" those ingredients as a meal. Use a unique name you can easily find later; this is a large database. Once this is done, you can go to Recipes and add a new recipe. Name your recipe, put your remembered meal name in "add ingredient" and scroll til you find your remembered meal. Click Add to the list of ingredients for your new recipe. Each ingredient for your remembered meal will be listed in your new recipe. Ingredients can be adjusted if needed, but each ingredient would need to be adjusted, of course. It would be simpler to make a remembered meal for varying portions, named appropriately (i.e. 1 cup, 1/4 cup, etc.). You can add a portion-adjusted remembered meal to a recipe more than once; ingredients will look weird long, but they will be added as many times as needed. But you can also add a specific portion needed of a remembered meal to your new recipe.

    A couple of things about remembered meals feature...

    Once named, a remembered meal can have ingredients changed, but not the name of the meal. To change ingredients, log remembered meal into diary, modify ingredients as desired, then remember meal and select "replace existing meal."

    If for some reason somebody wants to change the name of the meal, all they have to do is log the meal in a blank meal (e.g., use a space in some future date in your diary), then click save meal and give it a different name. Obviously, if you want to tweak some of the individual foods in the meal for the new name, just do that before you save it with the new name (although, as TeresaW points out, you can also edit the individual foods/ingredients at a later time as well).

  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    I tried mathing it out yesterday with the regular recipe function for shepherd's pie, using mashed potatoes I made a few days earlier. There was 64% of the potatoes left by weight, so I multiplied every ingredient in the mashed potatoes recipe by 0.64 and added each to the shepherd's pie recipe. A little bit awkward, but it should be fairly accurate!

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