recipe sites for cheap once-a-week cooking with a SCALE
March 30, 2018 10:44 PM Subscribe
I have a somewhat unusual way of feeding myself. Each week, I pick a menu of two recipes that share ingredients, and cook in one afternoon 10 servings of each recipe. I love buying in bulk, and I hate measuring volumes. And I really, really hate the "US customary" volumes. Are there recipe sites that (1) publish recipes scaled for 10 servings, (2) suggest recipe pairings that share ingredients, and (3) specify ingredients by weight?
For example, last week I made a big pot of rice and 4L each of saag paneer and paneer tikka masala. Dinner every night was either saag paneer or paneer tikka masala microwaved over a bowl of rice.
The closest I've seen is the ingredient re-use in "The Pleasures of Cooking for One." But in every other respect, that book is the opposite of what I want: it's all about scaling everything down to one serving, and cooking often.
For example, last week I made a big pot of rice and 4L each of saag paneer and paneer tikka masala. Dinner every night was either saag paneer or paneer tikka masala microwaved over a bowl of rice.
The closest I've seen is the ingredient re-use in "The Pleasures of Cooking for One." But in every other respect, that book is the opposite of what I want: it's all about scaling everything down to one serving, and cooking often.
Well, this would involve some manual work, and I don't know how complete their database is, but this food volume to weight calculator could help you convert recipes to weight based recipes.
A few searches in their search field showed that they had a bunch of staples in their database.
posted by el io at 1:08 AM on March 31, 2018
A few searches in their search field showed that they had a bunch of staples in their database.
posted by el io at 1:08 AM on March 31, 2018
Most European recipes give ingredients by weight. If metric measures are not your thing there are sites which allow you to pick between metric and imperial. And I‘ve never had a digital kitchen scale that couldn’t do both. So check some British recipes to help with the by weight bit.
Recipes for ten servings is another thing though. That‘s just not how most people approach domestic cooking. What do you dislike about doing the scaling yourself? If you’re planning a menu based on two recipes and an overlapping set of ingredients you already have to add at least two weights to figure out how much of each ingredient you will need to buy/prep. Scaling involves just one more step. I assume you want to eliminate both those steps and have an app do that for you?
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:24 AM on March 31, 2018
Recipes for ten servings is another thing though. That‘s just not how most people approach domestic cooking. What do you dislike about doing the scaling yourself? If you’re planning a menu based on two recipes and an overlapping set of ingredients you already have to add at least two weights to figure out how much of each ingredient you will need to buy/prep. Scaling involves just one more step. I assume you want to eliminate both those steps and have an app do that for you?
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:24 AM on March 31, 2018
This won’t give you recipe ideas, but I use an app called Pepperplate for all my recipes. When you see a recipe you like, add it in there. Convert to weight at that point.
Pepperplate can filter recipes by keyword, so you can add key ingredients as the keywords for your recipes, choose a couple options for what ingredient you might want to share, and filter your recipes by that ingredient to plan your menu.
There’s a built-in grocery list, and when you add the recipe to the list, it asks how many portions you want to cook. Then it will add the right quantity to you shopping list.
Same feature for your schedule - the day you’re going to cook, you can add your recipe and set the number of portions and it will scale the recipe for you.
This would be a great long term solution, as long as you set up recipes and in volume measurement and add keywords when you add them, you’ll be creating your own database. I find it’s really useful the more I use it as it has all my staples and lots of things I’ve just tried once or twice that I might want to pull out again.
posted by DoubleLune at 4:52 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Pepperplate can filter recipes by keyword, so you can add key ingredients as the keywords for your recipes, choose a couple options for what ingredient you might want to share, and filter your recipes by that ingredient to plan your menu.
There’s a built-in grocery list, and when you add the recipe to the list, it asks how many portions you want to cook. Then it will add the right quantity to you shopping list.
Same feature for your schedule - the day you’re going to cook, you can add your recipe and set the number of portions and it will scale the recipe for you.
This would be a great long term solution, as long as you set up recipes and in volume measurement and add keywords when you add them, you’ll be creating your own database. I find it’s really useful the more I use it as it has all my staples and lots of things I’ve just tried once or twice that I might want to pull out again.
posted by DoubleLune at 4:52 AM on March 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
It’s expensive, but Wayne Gisslen’s Professional Cooking has recipes by weight for 10-25 servings. You can get an older edition for less.
posted by nicwolff at 6:13 AM on March 31, 2018
posted by nicwolff at 6:13 AM on March 31, 2018
Try using the search term “foodservice recipes.”
It should get you a lot of what you want.
posted by Miko at 12:04 PM on March 31, 2018
It should get you a lot of what you want.
posted by Miko at 12:04 PM on March 31, 2018
Allrecipes UK has ingredients (which you can filter for) by weight, but you'll still need to scale up servings-per-dish. Ditto, BBC Food.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:37 PM on March 31, 2018
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:37 PM on March 31, 2018
Have you looked at Meal Prep sites and blogs? There's also a subreddit.
posted by peacheater at 6:25 PM on March 31, 2018
posted by peacheater at 6:25 PM on March 31, 2018
Response by poster: foodservice and meal prep are fruitful queries, thanks! And Professional Cooking is tempting, especially since I can get the previous edition for $50, complete with some culinary student's marginalia.
Regarding European recipes, how do I search for those? I'm getting a lot of hits for volumetric recipes prefaced with a cute story about how the author had this dish once in Nice etc.
To respond to the question about scaling: I do often take a regular recipe and try to make a triple batch, but sometimes scaling recipes up requires some changes to the technique. E.g., for scrambling eggs or frying bacon, the usual stovetop method only scales up to about a dozen or a half-pound, because my pans aren't big enough. If I'm making a month's worth of breakfast burritos, it's much easier to scramble the eggs by baking them in a casserole dish.
posted by d. z. wang at 4:08 PM on April 1, 2018
Regarding European recipes, how do I search for those? I'm getting a lot of hits for volumetric recipes prefaced with a cute story about how the author had this dish once in Nice etc.
To respond to the question about scaling: I do often take a regular recipe and try to make a triple batch, but sometimes scaling recipes up requires some changes to the technique. E.g., for scrambling eggs or frying bacon, the usual stovetop method only scales up to about a dozen or a half-pound, because my pans aren't big enough. If I'm making a month's worth of breakfast burritos, it's much easier to scramble the eggs by baking them in a casserole dish.
posted by d. z. wang at 4:08 PM on April 1, 2018
There's a whole world of people who do "Once a Week Cooking"--googling that should give you a ton of appropriate recipes, though the weight vs volume thing will probably still be an issue in the US recipes you'll find. If you can pare your results down to European sites somehow, or find a good calculator, you should be all set.
posted by bink at 12:19 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by bink at 12:19 AM on April 5, 2018
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posted by mikek at 10:56 PM on March 30, 2018