Cooking Pasta & Depression

[Fittea]

So I'm in a bit of a pickle. I decided to cook a big batch of pasta to have over X amount of days. I used the following:

500g fusili pasta

500g Quorn pieces

140g mushrooms (roughly 6)

100g mixed peppers

40g onion, sliced (half a small onion)

500g Dolmio sauce (roughly as it was a 750g jar)

30g Cathedral City Mature cheese, grated

Once it was cooked, I put my "pasta eating" bowl on the scales to find out how much that weighed, it said 600g. I slowly add pasta until the bowl was around half full which added 150g. I then added the mix of Quorn pieces, veg and sauce on top and that was roughly 175-200g I think? So overall it's somewhere between 325-350g for all of it? How do I work out the calories? I'm sure some of you will remember the last time I was here I was mega confused on pasta and calories lmao.

Also I had various incidents during cooking this. At first I couldn't get the hobs to work. Once I did I last minute decided to just add all pasta which eventually needed another pot. Half way through I ask my boyfriend to come in and open the window as I can't reach. When he does, he swiftly notices that I have left the water hose from the washing machine placed through the metal hob cover things and so it's burnt around 5 inches of holes through it. UGH. I then realise I cooked the veg before I cooked the Quorn so I'm either about to eat very over cooked veg or under cooked Quorn. Finally I had the dilemma of not having a clue where to start on weighing, measuring and counting the calories. So I kinda half arsed it and now I'm sat down with a lot of crap swirling in my head.

Any help is appreciated.

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone]

The pasta will have the calorie count on the packet. If you've cooked the whole 500gms, you should be able to work it out from there. You've used 500gms of dry pasta so go by that.

Same for Quorn and your other packet or tinned ingredients: you have the "dry" weight, i.e. the weight before you cooked it, so go by that.

For the mushrooms and onions, Google "calories in ....."

Add up the total amount.

Decide how many meals it's going to make and divide the total by that.

[Fittea in reply to BridgeGirl]

The packet says 100g is 355 but FatSecret says unbranded fusili is 157 and fusili from Tesco is 270 (75g portion)? I think I should be fine working the other stuff out but as usual I'm totally stumped on pasta and it's stressing me out so much.

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Fittea]

I would go by the packet. So 5 times 355 cals for 500gms pasta.

If you go by the packet each time, you won't get stressed out

And remember, you have a good calorie allowance from the NHS BMI calculator.

[Fittea in reply to BridgeGirl]

Hmm okay. Yeah my allowance is somewhere between 2,400 - 2,900 I think. I have yet to reach it this week. I had just over 2,000 on Monday but around 1,600 since. I imagine this will be higher. I'm not really sure how the sauce will work out cos who knows how much is mixed in the portions I eat, if that makes any sense lol. Apparently 100g is 45 calories, I used around 500g and I've had about half, maybe third of what I made? So I would hazard a guess at around 100 for the sauce?

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Fittea]

I thought you said 100gms was 355 cals. How have you come up with 45 now? You've got me confused now!

And I thought the recipe you listed above was for several meals.

You don't need to hazard a guess: you have the ingredients listed and most of them will have calorie counts on the packet so just add them up

[Fittea in reply to BridgeGirl]

There's a lot of numbers I know haha the 45 was regarding the sauce. As you've seen below I've finally figured it out just trying to fit it all into my diary lmao.

[Gonti 10 kg in reply to Fittea]

355 calories for 100g of pasta dry weight sounds right to me. The other calorie relate to cooked pasta.

When you have both recovered I suggest Youtube and instagram for cooking lessons for healthy meals for people who cant yet cook.

Try also baked potatoes, ricenoodles, and cous cous. The later two do not need cooking just add hot water. Buy some measuring spoons and figure out what to do with half used packets. Baked beans, eggs, salad and veg you can eat raw - easy to do.

Keep trying. The first meal I ever cooked was baked beans and mashed potato.

[Fittea in reply to Gonti]

Thanks for the advice gonti. I have come to the conclusion that it is roughly 1,250 kcal in total:

140g mushrooms = 26

100g mixed peppers = 26

40g onion = 16

250g dolmio sauce = 100

250g quorn pieces = 247

200g pasta = 710

30g cheese = 125

So I guess I'll have it tomorrow night as well.

[Gonti 10 kg in reply to Fittea]

Assuming two of you are eating it? Yes probably. Pasta and potatoes dont freeze well. Bon appetite!👌

[Fittea in reply to Gonti]

The rest will be eaten tomorrow I'm trying to get used to smaller / appropriate portions and having more veg. I'm sure I'll make mistakes along the way but I'm hoping to eventually get it.

[Gonti 10 kg in reply to Fittea]

Above all have fun with it

[Bee-bop Maintainer 2st 7lbs in reply to Gonti]

Hi Gonti,

Just wanted to say wholemeal pasta freezes ok but yes, cooked potato is harder unless mashed 🙂

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Fittea]

That's the way to do it

[Bee-bop Maintainer 2st 7lbs in reply to Fittea]

Hi Fittea,

If you don't have the packets/ jars you can check at:

Nutracheck.co.uk

Is the sauce 45 per 100g ? As it's a bit under for 250g as it would be 45+45+23(ish) which would be 113 cals I use my phone calculator to make sure I get things right when the numbers are "fiddly"

[MadmellyGT]

Pasta and rice does seem to confuse people. My friend thought she was on to a winner cos she was getting to eat loads of pasta and rice but staying within her calorie limits, it wasn't until she realised that she wasn't losing weight. And told me how she was doing it that I kindly told her where she was going wrong. She thought that the calories for cooked pasta per 100g was the calories for dry, so she was doomed from the very beginning of her recipes. It usually says underneath the nutrition information whether it's for 100g of dried, or 100g of cooked. I always use the dried/raw calorie count and weigh it after then calculate from there. If I'm making a bolognese. I weigh everything in their raw form then add all the calories up. After you weigh the whole cooked dish. Devide your total number of calories for your raw food by the whole weight in grams of your cooked dish. You should then end up with the calories per gram for your meal. Then just weigh however much you're going to eat and times it by this number. Hope this helps and I haven't confused you further. 😊

[Scarletsunrise in reply to MadmellyGT]

Wow

This is much better than how I do it. And now I'm questioning why I never thought of it!

Thanks

[MadmellyGT in reply to Scarletsunrise]

I find it a lot easier and more precise because cooked weight can change quite a bit if you cook it longer or don't cook it as long. Take a chicken breast for example. The longer you cook it, the smaller/lighter it weighs, so say a 100g of a peice of raw chicken breast is 106 calories, then you grill it, it is still going to be 106 calories. After you have grilled it until it's just cooked through and say it weighs 80g now, it would then work out to be 133 calories per 100g. But if you carry on grilling it, it's going to weigh even less. Let's say it now weighs 70g, that now works out at 151 calories per 100g. It's the opposite with pasta and rice of course, because the more you cook it, the heavier it weighs. This is why I always start of working out the raw value of the ingredients first. 😉