Equivalents – this chart will make your life (in the kitchen) easier

This isn’t going to be an entertaining post with pictures and all. It’s more of a helpful post. We need to have some balance here. Not all fun and games and eating and pictures.

I guess I’ve never really put a game on here… I could though, one time I saw a bar recipe and a letter was piped on each bar and they made a crossword out of it. And I’ve also seen a meat and cheese checkers game. And one of the neatest looking things I’ve seen was square cakes frosted white and oreo cookie halves stuck on them in a pattern so the cakes looked like dice.

Warning: Sudden change of subject. I used to cook pasta and be dumping the uncooked stuff into the water and then dump in more, thinking it surely wouldn’t be enough. As it cooked, it grew and GREW and I’d end up with enough pasta to feed an army! Then, I found this info, and I haven’t cooked way too much pasta since. But I still dump in the uncooked stuff and think ‘Surely that won’t be enough’, but it always grows and sure enough, it’s enough! I know, it says on the package how much cooked uncooked makes, but it seems to always have it in ounces!

Or I would be crushing crackers crumbs with a rolling pin and empty the crumbs into a measuring cup, crush more, empty them, until I had enough. And then sometimes I crushed too many and had to decide what to do with the leftover crumbs… throw them away or throw them in.

Or I’d need 1/4 cup of lemon juice and want fresh-squeezed juice, so I’d go to the store and not know how many lemons I’d need to make 1/4 cup. So I’d buy 4 or so, just to be safe (I only did that one time, then I had a better idea of how much juice one lemon makes after that).

So, I hope this info helps you as much as it helps me! These measurements might not be exact, but it gives a ballpark idea anyway.

Macaroni               1 cup (3 1/2 oz) uncooked   = 2 1/2 cups cooked
Noodles, med        3 cups (4 oz) uncooked        = 4 cups cooked
Speghetti               8 oz uncooked                       = 4 cups cooked
Popcorn                 1/3 – 1/2 cup unpopped      = 8 cups popped
Rice, long grain     1 cup uncooked                     = 3 cups cooked
Rice, minute          1 cup uncooked                     = 2 cups cooked

Bread                      1 slice                                     =3/4 cup soft crumbs
= 1/4 cup dry crumbs
Graham crackers  7 squares                               = 1/2 cup crushed
Ritz crackers         12 crackers                            = 1/2 cup crushed
Saltines                  14 crackers                            = 1/2 cup crushed

Bananas                  1 medium                              = 1/3 cup mashed
Lemons                   1 medium                              = 3 Tbsp. juice
Limes                      1 medium                             = 2 Tbsp. juice
Oranges                  1 medium                             = 1/4 – 1/3 cup juice

Lettuce                   1 head                                   = 5 cups shredded
Carrots                   1 pound                                 = 3 cups shredded
Celery                     1 rib                                       = 1/2 cup chopped
Corn                        1 ear                                      = 2/3 cup kernels
Green pepper        1 large                                   = 1 cup chopped
Mushrooms           1/2 pound                             = 3 cups sliced
Onions                    1 medium                              = 1/2 cup chopped
Potatoes                 3 medium                             = 2 cups cubed

Almonds                 1 pound                                = 3 cups chopped
Pecan halves          1 pound                                = 4 1/2 cups chopped
Walnuts                  1 pound                                = 3 3/4 cups chopped

And while I’m at it, I might as well throw in some more equivalents that I’m sure you all know. But these still come in handy when your mind goes blank… blank like mine did this morning when I made coffee and after awhile was wondering why I didn’t smell it and when I looked at the coffee pot, there was clear water in it instead of coffee! Shannon said ‘the problem with coffee is that you need it first in order to be awake enough to make it’, or something like that… it didn’t sound as confusing when he said it.

I actually forgot what I was supposed to be writing here and had to go up and check… more equivalents:

3 teaspoons            = 1 tablespoon
4 tablespoon           = 1/4 cup
5 1/3 tablespoons  = 1/3 cup
8 tablespoons         = 1/2 cup
16 tablespoons       = 1 cup
2 cups                      = 1 pint
4 cups                      = 1 quart
16 cups                    = 1 gallon
4 quarts                  = 1 gallon

And from there, you’re on your own.

I just finished eating a fresh strawberry scone… delicious! I’ll post the recipe later. Do I mean fresh as in fresh strawberries or fresh as in fresh-baked? Yeah.

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