Scale

In the canning and preserving recipes here, where it’s important that you use precise quantities (not only for safety but also so your preserves taste and look the way I’ve so evocatively described them), I’ve listed amounts for the main fruit or vegetable by weight rather than by volume. One person (say, my mom) can dice 3 pounds of strawberries and end up with 10 cups, while another person (me) can do it and get 9 cups. And one person can pick 5 oranges off their tree to get 3 pounds, then go next door and have to steal 7 of the neighbor’s oranges to get 3 pounds. It just makes more sense to weigh these things, and for that you’ll need a scale. Of course, if you’re buying your produce at a place where there are scales, you can just keep track of how much you buy and calculate from there to determine how much of it you’ll need for a particular recipe. The weights I provide are usually for uncut fruit.