Food (for thought) Friday - Handy Cooking/Baking Helpers

Today as I was making my macaroni salad to go along with dinner tonight,(which can be found here on the blog: Grandma's Macaroni Salad) I thought of my mom and how often we had homemade salads of that nature when I was a kid. She always seemed to have potato salad or something ready to go. I'll admit it, I'm guilty of buying my salads from the deli for convenience-sake more often than not these days. I don't know why, potato salad or a macaroni salad aren't that difficult to prepare! I think for me, what it boils down to is planning ahead. I usually think of these things too late in the day for the salad to be ready by dinner. While they are easy to prepare, they can be slightly time consuming (cutting and cooking potatoes for example or prepping ingredients for mac salad) and not something you want to be doing while you're cooking the rest of your dinner, they are to be made ahead of time.

That then led my brain-thoughts onto time saving things. Which, as I was reading my recipe out of my book, I was reminded of the other things I write in my book to save me time. I have through the years added to my own "Special Helps" section - things I've looked up at one time or another that was relevant to what I was making at the time. I decided to save myself the headache for next time, and add the note in the back of my book. That way, next time around, I have my information in one handy spot - thereby saving me time by NOT having to hunt it down, again!

So, I thought I'd just share a few of my little notes that have helped me along the way with one food project or another!

This bit of "cups per 5 or 10 lbs of flour, sugar and butter" and other information, I remember came from gearing up for Christmas baking. I take all the recipes I am planning to make in their respective quantities, and I add up all the butter, flour, sugar and eggs etc.. That way I can figure out just how much I need in total and how much I should buy. Figuring it out in bulk saves me a lot of time, lol! And as stated, the amounts are all approximate, but it does help give me numbers to work with when I'm making my shopping list for the ingredients.

Hope you find these as helpful as I did through the years! 

Cups per pound of all-purpose flour

approximately 3 1/3 to 4 cups = 1 pound of flour

approximately 34 - 40 cups  in a 10 lb bag

approximately 18-20 cups in a 5 lb bag

Cups per pound of sugar, as per type

Cups per pound of granulated sugar: approximately 2 - 2 1/4 cups

Cups per pound of powdered sugar: approximately 3 3/4 to 4 cups

Cups per pound of brown sugar: approximately 2 1/4 - 2 1/2

Butter

2 cups per pound of butter

Chocolate Chips

1 cup = approximately 6 oz.

Applesauce for Vegetable Oil Swap

Use the same amount of applesauce as you would oil in your recipe. This does work better in some things than others - as it's not recommended for cookies, but works pretty well for cakes and brownies! I use this one bit of information a lot.