Patel

Have you ever felt potato panic? You’re planning to have a dinner party for eight people, and then you realize that the grocery store bag says five pounds and your recipe calls for four servings of mashers. What gives? Why doesn’t math work out? Potatoes come in all sizes. One big russet can be a … Read more

The recipe calls for 3 cups of chopped onion. You open your produce bag and find five medium yellow onions. You know how to do the math in your head; you pick ’em up and start chopping, and before you’ve reached bottom of the pile you realize you’re out by a half-cup. And then it … Read more

Here’s how it works: You’ve got a bag of tomatoes in the produce section. It seems like plenty when you’re looking at the package but then you go to cut them up for dinner and realize there might be six large tomatoes or perhaps nine small ones. Now you’re questioning the recipe, which calls for … Read more

Why? The volume isn’t quite what it appears to be. In fact, once you peel and chop them, those big-looking carrots you purchased shrinks up and seem smaller. That’s a common experience for home cooks who do there meal planning by sight, as opposed to weight. Knowing how much a pound of carrots measures help … Read more

If there’s such a thing as kitchen panic, it might be standing in front of a recipe that calls for six cups of sliced apples, only to have a bag that says: “five pounds.” You think those measurements mean the same thing, but unless you factor in peeled, cored weight, and keep in mind that … Read more

The box tells you to cook couscous by pouring boiling water over top and waiting three minutes. Then it’s usually pretty dry in the middle, and kind of clunky. Maybe you screwed up? No. That’s just bare minimum. Badly prepared couscous is actualy fine; couscous are forgiving that way. But then there are certain types … Read more

How many lemons does it take to make a cup of juice? For that matter, what’s a cup of juice anyway? Lemons differ in size (and even water content), and different recipes typically call for precisely one cup; however you don’t know how many lemon you’ll need to get there. Depending on how you extract … Read more

For example: Rice costs less when purchased by 5-pound bag. But then you only cook a couple of cups at a time. This means that unless you figure out how much volume change from dry to cooked, you’re basically just playing a guessing game: Am I good? Will I need to top off my pot … Read more

Oranges are running out, and so is guest count! Now what? Store-bought orange juice won’t cut it, and fresh squeezed beats all. How much will I need? Guess wrong, and there’s not enough. Guess right, and there’s to many left over! If only someone could of done that math for me… Enter: Calculator. Enter your … Read more

Cooking with whole grains makes you nervous. Why? Because you can’t just rely on the clock; you has to watch for visual cues and let it rest. If you’re doing barley, you put some into a pot, add water, and hope for the best: Did the grain cook through, or have you got yourself a … Read more