SINGLE SIZE ME!

One of the BIGGEST problems in today's world is the focus on eating out, fast food, finishing everything on your plate, and buying pre-packaged frozen meals. These are KILLING us through increased obesity in both adults and children.

Well - I have a new favorite site for all of my cooking needs. I'm calling this post Single Size Me because you can choose how many servings you want to prepare and it will calculate the ingredient list to match your selection. It also has nutrition information for every recipe in its database. For example, I wanted to make pizza the other day - individual pizzas for my husband and I. I didn't want a lot of extra dough (or a lot of extra work -- the temptation with pizza is to eat "just one more piece" until three pieces later, you've eaten your entire day's calories in one meal). SO, I found a whole wheat pizza crust recipe, typed in that I wanted to make two servings, followed the instructions, and VOILA!!! Perfect amount of food for a perfectly healthy and satisfying meal.

I think this can be especially helpful in the SWEET TOOTH arena. The problem I have is NOT that I eat sweets when I have a sweet tooth every now and then. The problem is that I make a whole batch of cookies, promising I will give away and get rid of all but one little cookie, and then I eat a bunch of the dough while making the cookies, a few fresh ones when they come out of the oven, one or two off the cooling rack, etc. -- YOU KNOW THE DRILL, RIGHT? So what I have found with this site is that I can make just the amount of servings I want and get rid of the temptation to munch on all the wonderfully sweet goodness in front of me at each stage of the creation process, not to mention left-overs that never quite make it out my door!

For example, my sister-in-law was over a few weekends ago, and I wanted to make cookies. I didn't have most of the ingredients for the kinds I really WANTED to make, and it was a Sunday afternoon so I couldn't go out and get the ones I needed. But I found a delicious recipe for NO BAKE COOKIES. PERFECT! I entered that I wanted to make six servings; it adjusted the recipe for me; I made the cookies; everyone got a little taste; and that was that. No extra temptations; no left-overs sitting on the counter; no need to sample in the baking process because I knew there was going to be just enough for everyone to have some.

Serving-size recipes: Thanks All Recipes.com!