How do I obtain the nutritional value of a recipe that I've made up on my own?

you could figure each ingredient separately and add them up

In most cases, the nutritional value of the components individually and add them up will work. In baking, that's not so simple, and possibly not in other foods when going from raw to cooked. I'm sure there's a web site to tell you, but I'll tell you how I have done it from before there were web sites.

Get a copy of a diet cookbook which lists food values. Find the recipe that most resembles your own, and work from there. If you are like me, the only differences will be spices or other very minor ingredient changes, or perhaps variables like substituting one fruit for another in pies. The differences will usually be ones that don't matter. For me, the only difference is likely to be spices, which are in negligible quantities.

P.S. Such books are almost always plentiful in used book stores, perhaps for sad reasons. Don't spend a lot of money on the cookbook.

Try The FDA Or Foodnetwork.com Or You Could Try To Determine The Nutritional Value Of Each Of Your Ingredients, It Might Take Some Math Tho.

Yes. The USDA puts out the "gold standard" of nutritional values for foods. It may be far more info that you want/need, however, as it includes all sorts of obscure vitamins and minerals.

Just Google "Nutritional values for foods" and you should get plenty of sites.

Then just look up values for whatever is called for in your recipe, like "6 oz. chicken meat, no skin, baked" or "½ cup salsa" or "1 medium onion, chopped" and so on. Don't forget salt, too, for sodium content. If the table gives you a measure in Tbsp. and you are using tsp. you will need to divide by 3, and so on.

When making your own recipe, you will need to calculate the nutritional value of each ingredient.

Here's one website, but you may need to delve deeper:

http://www.elixline.com/chart.html

Good luck in the contests!

Calorie King contains a lot of nutritional info on many of the foods we cook with daily. You don't have to "join the club," just click on the link "BROWSE FOODS" underneath the search field. It's helped me a lot!

http://www.calorieking.com/

www.fitday.com and www.slimfast.com both have pretty large databases containing nutrition info for various foods

Go to a doctor, give him/her the recipe, they will tell you.