Portion Scoops

SallyinWales

This is a handy idea if you are both trying to save money and watch your food intake at this time of year. Any foods such as cereal, rice, pasta, oatmeal, flour, lentils etc that tend to live in a tub and get dolloped out as needed can be portioned more economically if you make a portion scoop out of plastic bottles, plastic cups or whatever seems suitable (good recycling too).

If you are hoping to watch the weight as well, just work out what an 'ideal' portion would be (based on calories per weight for example) and cut the scoop so you always get that amount out. That way, if you want to cook rice for 1, 2 or 20 people, you just scoop out the right amount knowing you'll have no waste. Good for the waistline (no second helpings) and really helps make the dry goods go further for the budget.

FrankieM

At the risk of sounding dozey......what are good things to use for the scoops?

SallyinWales

I've used those thin plastic cups that come from venfing machines. You can get two from a small plastic pop bottle (one from the end with the cap left on, and one from the base), some laundry powders come with scoops, some tins can be safely cut down and re-used, small cardboard boxes can work, but I'd stick with washable items really. You might even find you have those silly little coffee cups from a dinner service (you know how everyone uses mugs and ignores the dinky cups that come in those sets!) might be the right size for some things. Plastic bottles seem the overall best though as they are easy to cut down.

sammyy

Things like old yoghurt cartons and cut down 1pt milk cartons would work well too.