Cookin’ at the Keyboard with Shelley

Summer Harvest

I’m back! Life has finally settled down enough for me to send a newsletter. I certainly didn’t plan to take a three-month leave of absence. I had great intentions, but just couldn’t make time for everything.

The Sound of Music production that the girls were in consumed half of April and most of May. There were 43 cast members, 150 costume changes, and four performances. The twins shared the role of Brigitta. They did a great job and caught the audience by surprise at the curtain call.

After all the excitement, several in our family fell into bed with the flu. We rallied in time to make a trip to California for a niece’s graduation. For three weeks in June, we either had company, or we were company.

Once the dust had settled, I realized that it was time for strawberries. With Sarah on a missions trip to Mexico, four girls and I grabbed some boxes and headed for the fields. This year the picking conditions were perfect: no rain, dry fields, cloud cover, no allergies, and lots of large berries! After an hour or so, I suggested that we probably had picked enough. But the girls were having so much fun, they didn’t want to leave. When I finally called an end to it all, we had picked 75 pounds of berries!

I like to make jam, but I don’t like to make room in my freezer for all that sugar. So once again, I take the SANE (some assembly needed eventually) approach. I mash enough berries for one recipe of freezer jam and freeze in a quart-sized bag. When we run out of jam, we thaw the berries and make another batch.

The rest of the berries (except for the ones I put into pies – see the recipe below) were frozen on a cookie sheet and put into freezer bags. We’ll use them for smoothies this year. Even with all the freezer cooking we like to do, it’s nice to have some space for a summer harvest, even when it comes in unexpected quantities!

Recipe Section

Strawberry Glaze Pie

With so many berries on hand, I made two of these pies last month. Unfortunately, they were gone before I could get a picture. I think it’s the cream cheese layer that made them irresistible. Although this is not a freezer-friendly recipe, all of you Advantage Cooking software users will appreciate being able to import this recipe into your database. What a delicious way to celebrate summer!

Software Suggestions

Advantage Cooking Conversions (Part 2)

And now we resume our intriguing discussion of ingredient conversions. If you missed the first installment, or need a refresher course, take a moment to read my previous conversion  (March 2006) explanation.

Our last discussion focused on conversions as related to weight and volume measures of ingredients. Conversions are also important when it comes to ingredients that aren’t easily purchased at the grocery store. Many of my recipes call for crumbled bacon or cooked and chopped chicken, neither of which I can buy off the shelf. I would prefer that the grocery report would tell me how many pounds of bacon or chicken to buy, instead of how many cups. These conversions take two steps to complete. Let’s start with the bacon.

Locate “Bacon” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter “Pound Package”.

Locate “Bacon, crumbled” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab, be sure there are no entries.
Under the Conversion tab, enter the following:

These entries tell the software that if the recipe calls for 1 cup of crumbled bacon, add 1/2 pound of bacon to my grocery list. If the recipe calls for 8 slices of crumbled bacon, I want to see 1/2 pound of bacon on my grocery list. If the recipe calls for 1 pound of crumbled bacon, put 1 pound of bacon on my grocery list. No matter how the ingredient appears on my recipe, the software will do all the calculating, and tell me know many pounds of bacon to buy.

When it comes to cooked and chopped chicken, I prefer to buy chicken breasts. Here are the entries to make for the conversion:
Locate “Chicken Breasts” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter “Pound Package”.

Locate “Chicken, cooked and chopped” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab, be sure there are no entries.
Under the Conversion tab, enter the following:

If a recipe calls for 2 cups of cooked, chopped chicken, then the grocery report will tell me to buy 1 1/2 pounds of chicken breasts. Otherwise, a pound of cooked chicken will equal a pound of raw chicken.

Locate “Onion” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter “Each”.

Locate “Onion, chopped” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab, be sure there are no entries.
Under the Conversion tab, enter the following:

You can adjust the conversions based on the size of onions that you usually buy. Larger onions might yield more than a cup of chopped onion, while smaller onions might yield less.

When it comes to shredded cheese, I prefer to buy the cheese and shred it myself. If you buy cheese already shredded, the following conversion is not necessary.

Locate “Cheddar Cheese” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab enter as many varieties of packaging as desired,
e.g. “Pound Package”, “2 Pound Package”, “5 Pound Package”

Locate “Cheddar Cheese, shredded” in the ingredient list.
Under the Packaging tab, be sure there are no entries.
Under the Conversion tab, enter the following:

Again, you can adjust the conversion based on your preference (e.g. 1 cup of shredded cheese = 3 oz. cheese).

Whenever I find something on my grocery list that makes me stop and think about how much of that ingredient I need to purchase, I take the time to add a conversion. A little bit of “brain work” at the computer saves me the frustration of “guessing” at the grocery store.

Download a trial version of the software! It’s free!

Closing Comments from Shelley

The ingredient conversions in Advantage Cooking are one of the keys to making the software a powerful tool, especially when generating a grocery report. If you have any questions, or need an example for a specific ingredient, click here to send me an email. Have a great summer!

         Shelley