For too many years I’ve found and stuffed recipes into a three ring binder, and if you pick it up wrong, everything falls out. My J has this perfectly tabbed and organized baking notebook (she swiped all my baking recipes from my notebook, and put them into hers) and it looks amazing. She has all these nice, neat tabs labeled Cookies, Cakes & Pies, Breads (these are actually quick breads or sweet breads…. no pizza dough here!), and Others. Others are things like “Almost Candy Bars” made from a devil’s food cake mix, Puppy Chow (chocolatey sweet Chex mix), and Fruit Smoothies. Her room is always trashed, but her notebooks (school included) are immaculate. I want one!
I decided to copy her and do the same. My notebook is atrocious. I have weeks and weeks worth of Menus for Moms menus jammed into it. Can I find THAT ONE RECIPE I really want to use tonight? No way. Not without memorizing which WEEK it’s from and then hopefully I can find it! So I am getting it organized. This entails typing out many, many recipes that were on index cards, or torn out of magazines, or on my M4M’s menus. I am also tossing MANY recipes we have never used/will never use/didn’t like too. So far, my new notebook looks great. I actually got a NEW notebook to start out with. What I realized I need, however, is to have one notebook for regular cooking recipes, and another one for bulk cooking and basic recipes for seasonings, baking mixes, etc. I am going to buy another set of binder tabs and I’ll set up my old binder for my bulk cooking. It feels like a never ending task!!
So tell me, do you have a notebook of recipes? Not cookbooks, mind you, recipes. Your recipes, family recipes, the ones you turn to all the time. The ones you are constantly looking up in that same cookbook… you know, the one you use three recipes from but still occupies space in our cabinet or on the shelf? Tell me about what you use! I’m very curious.
Yep, I have a notebook of recipes, and a whole stack of unfiled recipes, printed from the internet. I started going through them last week and still have a bunch more to go through. My notebook also has tabs, but that doesn’t help me any. lol
This is definitely a weak spot in my “home organization” (if you can call it that…). When we moved a few years ago, I did heave a whole bunch of clipped recipes that I hadn’t gotten around to trying, but I still have a lot left hidden in the microwave cabinet that are haunting me. I never get around to doing this job, but am trying to put the task on the front burner (kitchen pun intended).
What I am thinking of trying and recommending is the software my sister uses, or something like it. She has Big Oven, which I see is $29.95, and you can try a free trial. I think you can scan in (at least I hope so) or download recipes from the internet, then you can access them by ingredients, print menus and shopping lists, etc. I am thinking if I ever hope to get this done, that might be the way to go. Glad you are getting some time to step back and accomplish some of these things this summer.
Software! Yes I used to have Recipe Center on my old computer. It worked GREAT on Windows XP, but now on my Vista computer it crashes within a few minutes of opening, usually right in the middle of my entering a recipe. You can add your own to it, and even delete the ones that are already there if you don’t want them. You can search by ingredient, or meal. You can even double, triple, or half recipes by adjusting the # of people you are serving. And yes, it is free.
Hopefully they will get that Vista compatibilty thing worked out… probably round about the time Windows 7 come out. >:-[ Still, I need something tangible I can flip through and hold in my hand, hence the notebooks.