Hello Mamtaji,

Thanks so much for this amazing site.I'm a new user of this site and new to cooking too... ;)

Mamtaji,I would like to know how to measure the quantity of the vegetables..

For eg, recipes call for 250gm cabbage or 300gm potato...etc..

How do I measure these quantities at home..?

Hello Soumya

Welcome to our site :-)

Short of buying a weighing scale and measuring, it is difficult to be accurate. A kilo of spinach looks like a lot more than a kilo of potatoes for example.

If you are addressing me as Mamtaji, I assume that you live in India, where metric measures are the norm. Next time you buy some vegetables, see how much a kilogram or 500 gm. of a particular vegetable looks like. Slowly, as you shop and cook more often, you will begin to get a good idea of amounts, without measuring them.

Perhaps someone else here on this forum, will give you some other ideas.

Mamta

I'm afraid the only two options are to buy yourself an inexpensive set of scale (they don't have to be super accurate as the amounts for the vegetables are approximate anyway) or just to learn what a certain weight of each vegetable looks like from experience (by noting what weights you are buying).

Thanks to Mamta and Kavey for their reply.

I live in US and buy stuff in bulk(in lb)which would be sufficient for almost a week.

I've these measuring cups at home.I was wondering if I can cut vegetables and use these cups as an approximate measuring scale..!!!u know converting ml to lb/gm accordingly..?

What do you say..?

Hello Soumya

There are some conversion charts that tell you the weight of cups of different substances, like this one; http://www.recipes4us.co.uk/us_cups_to_weight.htm

We have plans to update our conversion charts (look under advice button at the top of the page), which will include cup to weight conversions.

Mamta

For things like peas you could probably find a conversion chart to convert from weight to cups but for things like spinach and other leafy vegetables I would imagine this would be less accurate since it will depend how densely each person pushes the spinach into the cup.

If you're getting more interested in cooking and would like to be able to follow non-US recipes more easily (where measures are usually given in weight rather than cups) I think getting some kitchen scales would help you a lot.

I checked out Amazon.com (US site) and they have some really well-priced models that should be suitable:

These are just $5.95:

Typhoon Slim Scale Black

These are $10.49:

3 Kg LCD Food Kitchen Scale

They have other models too.

Thanks Mamtaji.This is very useful.

Kevey,it's very sweet of you find those scales on Amazon.I indeed appreciate your efforts.

Thnaks again.