Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Cookbook

[Heather Carver (tierrabodhi]

Most of the recipes on cohousing.org have serving sizes of 4-6, so anyone
wanting to use them for a community meal would need to do some arithmetic.

A former resident here once showed me a cookbook from a retreat place she
used to visit--it had the type of grid mentioned, each column showing the
quantity of each ingredient to use for that number of diners. I use a
recipe program (MacGourmet) in which I can scale the ingredients of any
recipe to a specified number of servings. Some recipe websites have this
feature as well. However, that only changes the amount of the ingredients;
it does not offer any help with adjusting pan sizes or cooking times. (When
I first started cooking community meals, the biggest surprise was how much
longer it takes to cook large quantities!)

I'm certain Sean could come up with good, user-friendly ways to do all
this, if enough people are interested. I'd be happy to contribute recipes.

Heather Carver
Columbia Ecovillage


> My ideas for the " program" for  a Cohousing Cookbook would include:
>
> It would need to include grids for each recipe to adjust the number of
> servings.  Pan sizes for baking - how to go from 8x8 to 1/2 sheet pan
> sizes- that may limit the " adjustability"
> It should indicate time needed to prepare, and Cook or Bake, and tips on
> serving, how well it freezes.
>   sub heading - would more than one cook speed up the prep time?
> It would need to include Vegetarian, and Vegan and Gluten free recipes.
> Also meat based recipes, Recipes that can be split-
> ( for example: prepare and saute veggies and add meat to only half of it)
> It should not include recipes calling for a lot of prepackaged
> ingredients, altho sometimes pre-packaged makes a dish practical.
> What dishes can Children help prepare?
> Might indicate relative cost of the ingredients.
> Nutrition information, usually available on the on-line recipe sources.