The Cook EZ blog

Kitchen writing with named sources. Technique, nutrition literacy, and meal planning. No doorway posts.

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• Nutrition literacy

  How to estimate portion sizes when the scale is in the other room

  Hand heuristics, cooked versus raw FoodData Central rows, restaurant plates, and when to stop guessing and weigh.

• Nutrition literacy

  Why calorie apps disagree, and how to be less wrong

  Database mismatch, serving-size law, cooked water, restaurant oil, and TDEE equations. How to log in Cook EZ without treating the number as a lab assay.

• Technique

  Weeknight cooking techniques that actually shorten the clock

  Overlapping heat, fond, salt timing, carryover, and a short list of methods that make Tuesday dinner taste intended.

• Nutrition literacy

  What TDEE actually means (and what Mifflin-St Jeor is doing)

  Resting energy, activity factors, the 1990 Mifflin-St Jeor paper, and how to use a calorie calculator without treating it like a metabolic ward.

• Technique

  Mise en place that saves time (without a restaurant brigade)

  A home version of everything in its place: what to preheat, what to pile, what to mix in a cup, and what to skip so Tuesday still ends in dinner.

• Nutrition literacy

  Protein without the hype: grams, cooked yields, and a normal plate

  RDA versus training targets, FoodData Central cooked values, legumes and tofu, and how to cook protein so you do not drown it in sugary sauce.

• Meal planning

  Cook once, eat three times: a leftover plan that is not beige jail

  How to turn one pot into three distinct dinners with FSIS leftover rules, recrisping, and a fresh element each night.

• Nutrition literacy

  Reading a Nutrition Facts label like a cook, not like a billboard

  Serving size, dual columns, added sugars, %DV, ingredients lists, and how to map a label onto FoodData Central logging and Cook EZ barcodes.

• Technique

  Carryover cooking and resting: residual heat, juice, and a thermometer

  Why meat keeps cooking off the heat, how rest redistributes juice, USDA safe temperatures, and how to write rest into a weeknight method.

• Meal planning

  How to build a shopping list from a recipe without buying the whole store

  Extract ingredients, subtract the pantry, convert units, check allergen bottles, and shop once for a Cook EZ card you will actually cook.

• Meal planning

  Pantry staples for weeknights: a short list that actually gets used

  Oils, acids, cans, grains, and freezer vegetables that turn a 6:30 p.m. fridge into dinner, with label checks and USDA leftover sense.

• Meal planning

  Meal prep that still tastes good on Thursday

  Texture, sauce on the side, recrisping, FSIS leftover windows, and generating Sunday components instead of five identical sad bowls.