writingwyo's Journal, 25 Sep 22

Haha, home cook meal always did that. I use the recipe features now to make it easier to log home cook meals. 

I use that a lot too, but only for reappearing foods we're reasonably consistent about ingredients and proportions. Soups are kind of a free for all for me -- no two the same. Ditto for my husband's stir fries 🤔 

That's very true writing, we rarely cook same meal the same way each time😄 

It looks super delicious!:) 

It was pretty good, wifeski! 😃 

I use the Recipes feature too, but since I never make anything exactly the same, I just edit it as I’m making the new batch and then I have the correct info which reflects the variations. 

Looks and sounds great 😃 

I cook a lot based on what is in the fridge and a little creativity. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to come up with anything close to factual numbers. I call it the great American short story, fiction. 

Kenna -- love it 🤣 I figure if I'm in the ballpark, I can live with it. Doogle -- thanks for the tip! LessFluffy-- thanks! 

A thing of beauty writingwyo... 100% 

YetAnotherAccount -- I sauteed an onion and garlic in some olive oil, then added broth, potatoes, and a can of cannelini beans with liquid (not drained). Cooked until potatoes were tender, then took a potato masher to it. You could also use an immersion blender if you wanted it smoother. Then just added the seitan and a bunch of fresh baby spinach and cooked it just until the spinach was done. Don't ask me for proportions...this was a "so it looks right" dish 😉 Those were my mother's general operating instructions in the kitchen 😂 

Thanks, gwzfire! 😃 Trying to be better about eating greens, and this is one of my favorite ways to have them 

Sometimes I meticulously determine what fraction of every ingredient I've eaten, and enter everything individually into FS. Other times I just find a "potato soup" in FS and call it good enough. Sometimes I make a spreadsheet and calculate everything down to the gram and calorie, and it ends up being within 10% of the entry already in FS. So, I guess it doesn't really matter. 

That's kind of my feeling zapotz. As long as I'm being reasonably honest, sometimes it'll just have to be good enough. I once had someone on MFP tell me I had to weigh my lettuce. I was like, dude, it's 5 calories a cup. No matter how careful you are, if you think you're going to track within 5 calories of accuracy, you're deluding yourself. So I track as best as I can without making it an onerous burden  

I've set up favorite meals that I can add things to. Some are just one item like 1/4 bagel with 1 tablespoon light cream cheese or 12 ounces fat free milk with 2 tablespoons hot cocoa mix.  

Yup... I pretty much guestimate when it's not prepackaged food. 

That looks so satisfying as we experience chilly weather already! Made lentil soup but may make this next. I like that you added spinach. Great idea. 

There is a way to count calories of home cooked meals, even when you don't follow strict portions. I learned this from Macro.Inc manual. This link opend a pdf where whey explain it better than I can. Scroll down to page 16 of that manual for how to track recipes and bigger batches of food. https://macrosinc.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Macros_Inc_Guide_To_Flexible_Dieting.pdf. 

I make your soup about 1-2x/month, minus the bread and seitan. Spinach as a filler is a great way to boost protein and vitamins. 👍🏻 (P.S.: Also good with split peas.) 

very nice I love potato soup