short attention span kitchen trick.

I’m sure someone has thought of this before, but I didn’t know about it before I came up with it.

So, I’m the queen of multitasking in the kitchen. I turn around to stir something in the middle of measuring out ingredients for something else, and…. oh crap, was I on the third or the fourth half cup of flour?? Argh.

My solution:

• Get a very small container. I use a stainless steel dipping bowl.
• Put some popcorn kernels (unpopped!!) in it. Beans or many other things could also work. I just spied popcorn first.
• Put it in a convenient place.
• When you get to one of these repeated measuring tasks, figure out how many times you are going to need to do the measuring to get to the full amount. For example, the Joy of Cooking Fast White Bread recipe I make calls for 1.25 cups of flour added in .25 cup increments, so I lay out 5 kernels.
• Every time you measure, move a kernel back into the container.

Now, as long as I’m sure I remember to move a kernel every time, I cannot lose count while measuring.

I make myself move a kernel before I’m allowed to put down the measuring implement. Otherwise, I’d just have another problem on my hands.