Tuesday, 10 February 2009

  • Organizing My Recipes

    Organizing Blog

    This month's challenge from OrgJunkie is getting recipes and cookbooks in order!!  When we first were married, I didn't do a whole lot of cooking outside of the crockpot. I am slowly venturing out and trying new recipes and learning new things.  A lot of the recipes I use are online, so I don't really have a lot of paper clutter.  I do, however, subscribe to some recipe magazines that take up a lot of space.  I've been wanting to come up with a system to save my favorites in one central place and to make sure I get around to trying the new recipes I discover.

    First I pulled all of the cookbooks and magazines out of the cabinet.  First I laid out the set of world cuisine cookbooks that Joe inherited from his Grandma. 

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    After talking to Joe, we decided that it was very unlikely we would be cooking from these, and that we were keeping them more for sentimental value.  Joe called his sister and asked her if she would like to have them and she said yes!!  So I set them aside for her.  If we ever happen to want to cook a certain cultural cuisine, we'll just borrow the cookbook from her.

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    Next, I sorted through my cookbooks and piles of magazines.

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    I tore out all the recipes I was interested in trying and consolidated things down to this:

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    When I was a newly wed--my mom sent me a binder to keep all my recipes in, complete with category dividers.  I didn't really put it to use until now.  She did the hard part for me!!  Here is my binder--my printer was out of ink--so the pictures on the cover will have to be reprinted.   Other than that, I'm happy with it!

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    The first section inside is a list we found in Joe's grandma's things.  I retyped it.  It's a list of seasonings, herbs, and spices and what they are typically used for.  It's really helpful!

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    My favorite part about my new system is that at the beginning of each section/category I've got a pocket divider in which I can keep new recipes I want to try.  After I try a recipe (and if we like it) I'll print it up and add it to a plastic sleeve in the appropriate section.  I really think this is going to work for me!

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    Yes, I have a whole section for PIZZA.  You'd be amazed how many different types of pizza dishes there are out there!

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    It feels so good to have a system in place, and this will make meal planning much easier!

    How do you organize your recipes?

Comments (7)

  • Jamiekid

    you organization goddess you!

  • WildWomanOfTheWest

    You've been busy~~ looks so good!!!

  • empress8411

    I love the binder idea! I used to download recipies off the web, print them out and stick them in binders. I have my recipies written on recipie cards sorted in plastic box. Most are written by my mother, MiL or grandma, so they have sentimental as well as practical value. As for cook books, I just organize how they best fit on the shelf. I use all of them.  ~ L

  • WildWomanOfTheWest

    I love the pics of you all on the cover~ cute!!

  • Ambs_LS

    My recipes are an absolute mess... so I just subscribed to the Organizing Junkie, AND I am going to tackle this project on my day off tomorrow!
    I am going to try and use the binder, with the pockets.  This looks like something that could work for me too.... I just have so many recipes!

    Thanks for the inspiration!

  • Luv_Monkee

    My recipe organization consists of having majority of the cookbooks in one place and hoping for the best. I was given a recipe organizing binder thingy by my mother in law and it's awesome. Unfortunately rather than writing things on the pages provided I've just been stuffing the recipes in the front over pocket and saying, "I'll re-copy it later."

  • orgjunkie

    You did such a great job especially on the purging!  Way to go!

    And guess what?  You also won the Storage magazine, yay!!  Send me an email to orgjunkie [at] hotmail [.] com and I'll get that out to you.

    Congratulations!

    Laura (orgjunkie.com)

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