Pantry and Substitutions to Simplify your Grocery List and Adapt it to your Needs

http://www.shopncook.com/blog/shoppin...

This tutorial shows how to create a clean shopping list from your recipes with Shop'NCook software. By using the pantry items and article substitution, only the grocery items you need are listed.

When you make shopping lists from recipes, a lot of items you don't actually need often end up being listed:
- ingredients you already have on hand,
- the same ingredients listed several times under different names,
- ingredients that you don't use usually, as you favor an alternative or a substitute for health reason for example.

To keep the shopping list compact and relevant, Shop'NCook software proposes two mechanisms:

1. The pantry: it allows to list the ingredients you have on hand, so that they are not added to the shopping list by default when you had ingredients from a recipe. You can also specify a threshold value, above which it is added anyway.

2. The list of substitutions: it allows to replace automatically some ingredients by others when you make your shopping list, in order to avoid having duplicate items on one hand, and on the other hand to have your favorite substitutes on the grocery list - for example butter instead of margarine, low fat milk instead of milk, etc.

The tutorial shows also how substitutions affect the recipe itself, the nutritional analysis and the costing analysis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdebU7...

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Closed Caption:

Shopping Lists from Recipes Pantry and Substitution
[MUSIC]
In this tutorial, I am going to show you how
to set up the pantry and the substitution
list.
The pantry and substitution list have been
created in answer to a few problems that we
have observed with shopping lists. Let me
show you what they are.
I have prepared here two simple recipes, chicken
cordon bleu and panettone, that I am going
to add to the shopping list.
Here I have added chicken cordon bleu, and
here I am adding panettone to the shopping
list. Let’s have a look at the shopping
list.
Here we can see a few problems. First, chances
are that you already have some of these ingredients
on hand like cornstarch, baking soda, sugar,
milk, maybe paprika and chicken bouillon,
so you really don’t need to have all of
these things added to the shopping list.
Another problem is that some ingredients are
listed two times. For example, here you have
flour and all-purpose flour. These are basically
the same ingredients. It would be better to
have this quantity aggregated under one item.
You have also butter and unsalted butter,
again, it’s the same thing you would like
the total quantity.
And egg and egg yolk: these are different,
but you still need to buy whole eggs to have
the egg yolk, so you would like to have the
total quantity of eggs you have to purchase.
The pantry and substitution list are going
to help you clean up and simplify your shopping
list so that you only have the items that
you really need to buy and listed only one
time.
Let me show you how it works.
First, you open the preference and the shopping
list tab. Here you can enable the pantry and
the substitutions.
Let’s start with the pantry. We click on
the edit button to display the pantry editor.
In here you are going to list those ingredients
that you always have on hand and that you
don’t want to always add to the shopping
list.
There are already two ingredients as an example,
salt and water. You can also specify a threshold
quantity. For example, you do not need to
add salt to the shopping list for small quantities
of salt, but if you need very large quantities
you still want to add it to make sure you
have enough. This threshold indicates from
which quantity you want to add the ingredient
anyway to the shopping list.
Let’s add a few more items to the pantry
to simplify our shopping list. For example,
cornstarch. To add a new item, you click on
the plus button, and then type the name of
the item in the field. You can then click
on the arrow, and it will display the list
of corresponding items of the database. You
can then select the correct one.
Let’s add also baking soda, sugar, milk,
paprika, and chicken bouillon.
In the case of milk, I have also specified
a threshold of one cup, meaning that in recipes
requiring one cup or less, milk will not be
added to the shopping list, but it will be
added when more is needed.
And then you can click “OK” to save the
pantry.
Next, let’s enable the substitutions. Then
we click on “Edit list” to open the editor.
There are already a few items in the list
of substitutions. For example, you can see
that flour will be substituted by all-purpose
flour, and egg yolk is substituted by egg.
In our shopping list we had both flour and
all-purpose flour listed as well as egg yolk
and egg, and this list will take care of these
two problems.
We can add a couple more items.
For example, we can substitute unsalted butter
by butter.
We can also make substitutions for health
reason or taste reason. For example, we could
choose to always substitute milk by low-fat
milk.
When you are done, you click “OK” to save
the change. Then we click “OK” to close
the preferences.
Now, let’s clear the shopping list, and
make a new one from the recipes.
So here we are going to add again panettone
and chicken cordon bleu to the shopping list.
Here is the shopping list. You can see it’s
much shorter and cleaner than before. All-purpose
flour and flour have been aggregated under
all-purpose flour. This is the total quantity.
Same thing for butter and unsalted butter,
for egg and egg yolk. Milk has been replaced
by low-fat milk. The pantry items have not
been listed in the shopping list.
It is of course still possible to add the
pantry items to the shopping list. For example,
in the shopping items tab of the recipe, the
pantry items are deselected. To add them to
the shopping list together with the other
ones, you just have to select them before
clicking on the “add to shopping list”
button.
I recommend also creating a sublist with your
pantry items to make it very easy to see at
a glance what is missing and replenish your
pantry with just a few clicks.
Finally, I’d like to show you how ingredient
substitutions affect the recipes, the nutritional
analysis, and the costing analysis.
Let’s display the panettone recipe. In it
you have egg yolks and milk that have been
substituted by egg and low-fat milk in the
substitution list. You see that the recipe
is not modified. Also, if we display the nutrition
tab, the nutritional analysis is not affected
by the substitutions.
But now the costing analysis is using egg
instead of egg yolk and low-fat milk instead
of milk, meaning it uses the grocery items
that are actually purchased for this recipe.
Now you have the option in the preferences
to enable the substitutions in the recipes
too.
I am going to show you. Let’s open the Scaling
tab of the preferences and enable “use substitutions
in recipes.” We select that and save the
preference.
Now, in the recipe it’s using egg instead
of egg yolk, low-fat milk instead of milk
as well as in the nutritional analysis.
Make sure if you enable this option to only
substitute ingredients that you are actually
using in the recipes. You should not include
the substitution of egg yolk by egg. Besides
it’s being very confusing in the recipe,
it gives a wrong nutritional analysis.
That’s all for the pantry and substitutions
list.