Easy Equivalents and Recipe Substitutions for Cooking By The Seat of Your Pants

I'm the kind of cook who makes up recipes as I go along. I cook by the seat of my pants.I use a pinch of this and a bit of that . I decide what's for dinner when I know what's in the fridge that needs to be used up. I'm not big on doing exactly what a recipe tells me and i am always making creative substitutions and changes.

I'm all about throwing leftover veggies into the soup pot along with some spices without consulting a cookbook. I cook by the seat of my pants whether I am cooking for a crowd or just for myself....., and though my days of putting three family meals a day on the table are long gone, I still find using up whatever is around and altering recipes on the spot to suit my need by substituting carrots for beans or beans for whatever, an exciting way to exist in the kitchen.

I think of this as culinary creativity and have no wish to change. I know I am not the only cook who feels this way so in the interest on solidarity, I thought I would share some of my hard won knowledge with my fellow "seat of the pants cooks" here on Hubpages by giving a list of equivalents ( you know, like 4 quarts = a gallon) and some tips on things you can substitute for other things that you figure out you don't have on hand only when you are in the middle of a recipe that calls for them.

So, off we go.

Lets say you have three rapidly rotting bananas sitting in your kitchen and you decide you want to make banana bread to use them up. Out comes the cook book and you find you have all the ingredients to proceed-- but the recipe calls for " two cups of mashed bananas" and you don't know if your three bananas equal two cups or not. Actually, three large bananas equal two cups of mashed banana-- at least for those of us who cook using pints, pounds, and cups. Those of you who use the metric system can skip ahead to the next section where I'll share some easy substitutions that come in handy when you figure out halfway through making something that you don't have one of the key ingredients and you need a quick substitution.

But back to equivalents. How about when you are making a chocolate cake and the recipe calls for one ounce of unsweetened baker's chocolate which you don't have, but you do have a tin of unsweetened cocoa. Yes you can-- you can substitute the cocoa for the unsweetened chocolate squares. Three tablespoons of cocoa mixed with one tablespoon of oil or melted butter equals on ounce of unsweetened chocolate. How about that for alchemy?

Want to sweeten with honey rather than sugar? As a rule of thumb, a cup of honey equals one and a half cups of sugar. Did you forget to buy garlic? You can use garlic powder instead. A quarter of a teaspoon equals one medium fresh clove

.Some things absorb water and expand in cooking, others boil down to less. You need to know these equivalents too. For example, one cup of elbow macaroni will give you two cups cooked. A pound of dry oatmeal yields five cups of cooked porridge. Three medium potatoes will provide you with about two cups of mashed while two cups of dry white rice will make a whopping six cups cooked. On the other hand a pound of fresh rhubarb will boil down to only two cups. ( Ohmygosh I love stewed rhubarb) but I digress.

Dried herbs can always be substituted for fresh, but you need to remember that the dried ones are much stronger so use only half as much as you would fresh. And last but not least, " the juice of one orange" is six to eight tablespoons of OJ out of the carton, while one lemon or lime is the same as two to four tablespoons of juice.

Oops the recipe calls for brandy and you don't have any, never fear, Substitute a teaspoon of Vanilla extract diluted with fruit juice ( lemon, orange, whatever) I know it sounds crazy but it works.

You don't have buttermilk? Use the same amount of low-fat yogurt instead. Need sour cream but don't have any? Add a tablespoon of lemon juice to a cup of evaporated skim milk and nuke in the microwave for 30 seconds on high to speed the curdling. You need tomato juice but only have a can of tomato sauce. Dilute the sauce with equal parts water and cook away, just remember not to add any salt-- the tomato sauce is already salty enough. This works great for making Bloody Marys Got a recipe that calls for a splash of vinegar? Use lemon juice instead. Just double the amount as lemon juice is not quite as strong as vinegar.

For the inventive cook, who is cooking by the seat of her pants, substitution is the name of the game. It's part of the fun and sometimes the substitution creates a whole new dish with new and even better flavors.You experiment and you learn by doing.

One small warning-- if you really do not know how to cook at all, do not try improvising and substituting until you have learned the absolute basics by following recipes and learning a few basic techniques. That said-- come on in and welcome to the society of seat of the pants cooks.