Cookin’ at the Keyboard with Shelley
I was helping my daughter with her Algebra 2 lesson last week. I groaned in dread as I started into the text because, as everyone knows:
Long Explanations = Complicated Subject Matter
Fortunately, this is not a universal truth. The “Ingredient Conversion” explanation below may be long, but it’s not complicated. Take a deep breath (no groaning allowed) and read on.
Conversions are necessary in order to equate volume measures to weight measures. For example, I buy butter in pounds, but most of my recipes call for butter measured in tablespoons or cups. Advantage Cooking needs to know how many cups are in a pound of butter, or it will punish you by telling you how many teaspoons to buy (now you can groan!)
Here are the steps to solve the problem:
Locate “Butter” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter “Pound Package”.
Under the Conversion tab enter the following:
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
.5 Cup |
4 Ounces |
Butter |
This entry simply tells the software that ½ cup of butter is equal to 4 ounces. You could just as easily have entered 1 cup of butter is equal to 8 ounces, etc. I’ve listed several other conversions below to give you more examples. If the desired packaging is not available, use the “Define Packaging” button at the bottom of the window.
Locate “Sugar” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter as many varieties of packaging as desired,
e.g. “Bag (5 pounds)”, “Bag (10 pounds)”, “Bag (25 pounds)”
Under the Conversion tab enter this equivalent found on a 10-pound bag of sugar:
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
1134 Teaspoons |
10 Pounds |
Sugar |
Locate “Brown Sugar” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter as many varieties of packaging as desired,
e.g. “2 Pound Package”, “4 Pound Package”
Under the Conversion tab enter this equivalent found on a 4-pound package of brown sugar:
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
454 Teaspoons |
4 Pounds |
Brown Sugar |
Locate “Chocolate Chips” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter as many varieties of packaging as desired,
e.g. “Bag (12 oz)” or “Bag (24 oz) or “Bag (60 oz)”
Under the Conversion tab enter the following equivalent (notice that a pint doesn’t always equal a pound!)
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
2 Cup |
12 Ounce |
Chocolate Chips |
Locate “Coconut” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter “Bag (7 oz)”
Under the Conversion tab enter this equivalent found on the bag of coconut:
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
2.67 Cup |
7 Ounce |
Coconut |
Locate “Flour” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter as many varieties of packaging as desired,
e.g. “Bag (5 pound)” or “Bag (10 pound)”
Under the Conversion tab enter this equivalent found on a 5-pound bag of flour:
|
From Amount From Measure |
To Amount To Measure |
To Ingredient |
|
17 Cup |
5 Pound |
Flour |
Conversions are also important when it comes to ingredients that aren’t readily available at the grocery store (e.g. cooked and chopped chicken, chopped onion, or crumbled bacon.) But we’ll save that discussion for next month. In the mean time, do you want to know about quadratic equations?
If you haven’t tried our Advantage Cooking software, click here for a 30 day free trial or to order your own copy.
Carol Santee
Carol is the co-author of the Big Book of Freezer Cooking and the author of 30 Day Gourmet’s Slow Cooker Freezer Favorites, Freezer Lunches To Go and Healthy Freezer Cooking eBooks. She is a computer information specialist and works for a computer software company.
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