Wednesday, March 24, 2010

???Organizing Recipes???

I'm interested in revamping my recipe books. Right now I have the family recipe cookbook in half-size binders. They are completely unorganized with missing tabs. I haven't added new favorite recipes. So they are a mess. I rarely can find what I need.

I love having my recipes online (like I did for my 6-week mealplan) because they are searchable, but I don't have a laptop for the kitchen and printing a recipe every time I need it seems ridiculous. This plea for help came to mind because I was searching for my scratch piece of paper that had a recipe for cookies printed on it. I know I've printed that recipe at least 5 times so it's silly to keep printing it. Yes - we need organization!!!

I'm thinking I might just revamp my family recipe book, put in half-size binders with protective pages, and add our new favorites. I want to have more categories so it is easier to find things (such as chicken, beef, soups all under main dish).

Soooo - my point (and question) is...

How do you like to organize your recipes?
~ recipe box and hand write recipes?
~ printed recipe binder in protective sheets so you can add as you need?
~ online only?


What do you think?

6 comments:

kylee said...

I have a recipe box, with index cards in it. In there are "family recipes" and the "tried and true" ones that are total keepers.

I keep a recipe binder with protective sheets for recipes I print from various sources. I have them in no particular order.... because even I'm not that organized.

Once I've tried a recipe, and it's deemed "good" it gets put in the recipe box on index cards, with my changes and adjustments.

THEN, just to make things completely messed up - online I have a bookmarked list of recipe sources, and bookmarked recipes (that I might not have decided to make yet).

I'm sure that doesn't help, given that I do all three of your ideas!

Janey said...

I have the same question! I try so many new recipes all the time that I stick to an online only thing...and in my google reader i have over 1000 starred posts of recipes that I want to try...(hmmm it'll take a lifetime!)

I have dreams of owning our own house someday and having a touch screen computer screen in our kitchen that I can pull recipes up from. This will also include the best program ever for downloading recipes and uploading them to help me create menus, shopping lists, etc. If you know of this fantasy program I'd love to hear what it is!

LeAnn said...

I have the same issue, but who hasn't. I have tried several different things and I have found a method that works well for me...though it is out of date since I had my little girl this last year.

I made a website using google - because it is free. It was really simple to use which is great because I know zero about html and that stuff. I divided it into 2 sections with recipes that I have tried and like and those that are on the waiting list to be tried. Here is the address to mine if you want to see how I did it. ---http://sites.google.com/site/familyrecipesarchive/ ---

Hope it helps -- LeAnn

Amy D. said...

I guess we need a laptop/notebook or iPad for the kitchen :).

Online is so accessible, and all my printed ones are folded, unalphabetized and in the pile--the ones on the top are the ones I used the most recently.

Suzanne said...

I am giving up the paper method. I bought Cook'n Recipe organizer software and enter my recipes as i use them and then throw out the paper. It scales, emails and prints easily. It was a big decision at $75, but well worth it.
I have had other softwares that were junk.
Good Luck

elizabeth said...

I put my recipes on this site that I really like and will do again, then I have access to them anywhere. I definitely need to do better, I really like LeAnn's idea.