How do you organize your recipe collection?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I save & organize recipes in my “recipe box” on Epicurious.com, Cookinglight.com, and Allrecipes.com. They all have functions for digital organization.</p>

<p>But I’m with the posters who don’t want to have a computer on the counter when the flour starts to fly. So, I also have old fashioned 3-ring binders with plastic page protectors (8x11). Office supply stores also have page protectors for 4x6 and 3x5 cards. With the binders, I can also file newspaper or magazine clippings. I use notebook dividers to categorize the recipes. I found some cute graphics & made labels for the spines & fronts with “My desserts/recipes.” Seeing my name on the cover somehow makes it more personal.</p>

<p>I usually print a recipe I am trying from the digital files. If I like it, I add it to my binders. This way, I have a hard copy of the recipe in a binder and a digital backup saved. If it is not a keeper, the printed copy simply becomes scrap paper for notes/lists or game scores and the digital recipe gets deleted.</p>

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<p>I bought a small (3x5) recipe notebook and went through several cookbooks. I wrote down the recipes on the cards, put them in the sleeves, and the book sits on my backsplash. It makes it easy to plan meals because I have about thirty recipes written out and I just flip through to see what I want to make for dinner. Since January first, I have only purchased dinner out one time, so I think it is helping me change my behavior (another thread!) as well.</p>

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<p>This thread makes me laugh. I have recipes in a small 5 x 7 binder which I used to use all the time, but there’s very little in there I still cook from. It’s my first recipe collection and I could never toss it. Then I have a collection in a think 8.5x11 binder which has the best recipes from my grad school years. I use this one more often, because the eating group we belonged to really had a bunch of good cooks. The main problem with these recipes is that they are all geared to 10-12 healthy appetites. Then I have another 8.5x11 binder mostly with recipes from 15 years ago when I cut out lots of newspaper reicipes, but rarely actually used them. There are may be two or three recipes in that binder I’ve actually cooked from in the last couple of years. Then I have a pile of loose recipes that I’ve mostly torn from the New York Times magazine. Some of them are really good. They sit on top of the pile of Bon Appetites and Cook’s Illustrated that aren’t in boxes. The magazines mostly have post-its marking favorite recipes. It’s all a horrible mess. I’m sure there’s a better system! I actually rather like the idea of a few ziploc bags by category. I’ve never used cards. I have tons of cookbooks and use them most often or I just cook from memory and inspiration. I have some recipes on the computer - either scanned or typed up. Especially ones that my son has called me about numerous times.</p>

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<p>This is one of those projects that seems so huge that I never do it. I did go through my cookbooks last year and gave away the one’s I never used. The one’s I don’t use but was not able to part with I put in a under island cupboard that had some unused space. The one’s I use regularly I left in my under island bookcase. For loose recipes I have cards and magazine cutouts in an old photo album. The kind that the paper sticks too. Over the years when I print out an internet recipe I like I have just stuffed it inside of the photo album. It is fun to look at what recipes I once thought I would enjoy making and eating. This wood be a great project to tackle.
I have several recipes I use off of the Food Network site. I usually just pull the recipe back up on my computer when I want to make something. Not a great system. I also don’t like the idea of using a recipe off the computer. I guess I am a messy cook and I would be concerned about the computer.</p>

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<p>mathmom - my post will make you laugh harder, when you read what monster I created!</p>

<p>I got almost 50 recipes typed in last night, into a 4x6 template I created. Used .25" margins on both top and bottom, and both sides, to maximize the size font I could use. So far I have not run across a recipe that won’t fit on just the front with just a little editing (so no more looking front to back, back to front, and front to back. Am using a 12pt. Times font, so it’s very easy to read! The recipe name is centered in 18 pt. font.</p>

<p>I found some nice card stock I have lying around for making cards, so I’m cutting down three 4x6 recipe cards from each 8 1/2x 11 sheet… And, anyone who knows me knows one of my favorite foods is artichokes. I have an artichoke stencil that just fits vertically on the 4x6 card, so I sponge it in with a light green color, run the card through the printer with a different recipe each time, and I have professionally-looking made recipe cards… all very uniform. </p>

<p>An idea I am throwing around (since I’ve only printed up a few as I played with the design), is color-coordinating the recipe title font color with the various categories, such as making main dishes black, making side dishes/salads green, making desserts red, making breakfast items orange, and so on, so that even when I get some dividers for my new recipe box, you don’t have to try to figure out which section a recipe goes in if it qualifies for more than one category (i.e. some of my salads can work for main dishes, so I might keep them in the main dish section, and make the recipe title black font. So if someone else is using it or putting it away, they can just match up the section with the divider color.</p>

<p>Yea, I know, I’m getting way tooooo anal about this. But I like the feeling of accomplishment right now. Managed to get all the recipes that were on random pieces of paper, cut out of magazines, etc. input last night. Am working on handwritten ones now… some of them are so old I can barely read them. </p>

<p>I have one recipe for french bread that a teacher of mine gave the class back when I was in 6th grade. I have been making it for years, for holiday occasions and it’s one of my kids favorites. It’s written out on 3 3x5 index cards in my very 6th-gradish printing. But it’s looking worn and faded, so I think I’m going to scan the originals and print them out on the recipe cards I’m making. It’s really the only personally, handwritten recipe that has any sentimental value to me or my family.</p>

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<p>I was feeling really good about my new little book until I read your latest post, teriwtt. Will you please come over to my house and color code and stencil my files?</p>

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<p>^^^^^^^ Right after she laminates all of them!</p>

<p>Y’know, there are just some people who like to throw off the grading curve. The ones who can’t just get an “A” they need to get the highest “A.” I think we have a curve breaker in our midst!</p>

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<p>If teri is the curve breaker, I am the slacker…I have absolutely no organizational method for recipes; in fact, they are bunched together in a cabinet…</p>

<p>I guess that’s a project for next year’s empty nest…add it to the list</p>

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<p>Fifty in one night–pretty good, terwtt! I’m a fast typist, so you’ve inspired me to tackle this project during 2011.</p>

<p>I use Evernote to store recipes I find online. I set up an Evernote notebook for recipes, and then I tag each one (main course, chicken, etc.). I have the app on my iPhone, so I can use that when I’m in the kitchen.</p>

<p>I recently purged the cookbooks we don’t use. I keep a list on the inside front cover of some cookbooks with recipes we like.</p>

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<p>“But I’m with the posters who don’t want to have a computer on the counter when the flour starts to fly.”</p>

<p>I operate differently, possibly, because I was trained as a chemist. Chemists never bring the procedure into the fume hood, so I learned to memorize the steps and line up the reagents before starting a process, with only a quick check of the “recipe” on the lab bench across from the hood in the middle of the process.</p>

<p>I do the same thing in the kitchen. All “reagents” are lined up and all steps are semi-memorized before I start making a dish. My laptop sits on the kitchen table (“lab bench”) where the flour does not fly. I do the same thing with my printed recipes. :)</p>

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<p>You could always take the MacDonalds approach.</p>

<p>Mount the monitor on a high-up cabinet or off the ceiling with the display fed from a device somewhere else in the home.</p>

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<p>Color-coded all my recipe titles last night and have made and stenciled about 60 recipe cards. </p>

<p>Yea, I’m a pretty efficient typist and my handwriting has gotten so bad over the years, that that’s why I wanted a system that utilizes a typed format. Writing things out takes longer than typing for me. </p>

<p>BunsenBurner - yea, that approach wouldn’t work for me, in fact, I can say it hasn’t always worked for H either. I’ll never forget one time when he wanted to make blueberry buckle to take to a party and forgot to put the sugar in. That was almost 20 years ago and people still kid him about it. It was awful! I am sometimes in awe that he hasn’t blown up a lab somewhere!</p>

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<p>Remember the I Love Lucy episode when Lucy was at home for awhile and started taking apart the phone to see how it works. </p>

<p>Impressive project teriwtt, I’m just jealous, but do hide the phones ;)</p>

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<p>SouthJerseyChessMom - I Love Lucy is my all time favorite sitcom! I think I’ve seen every episode at least 20 times, but I don’t remember this one. Help me out here!</p>

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<p>siliconvalleymom
I would love to have your molasses cookie recipe if you are inclined to share!</p>

<p>(I’ll pass on the chicken/velveeta/chips for now :slight_smile: )</p>

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<p>My Bad, maybe it was a Laverne and Shirley episode, Laverne is home, bored, and starts to take appliances apart -----</p>

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<p>teriwtt–sorry for the delay in answering you but it took awhile to find the info. The program & cards I bought were from DVO [Recipe</a> Organizer: Cook’n is the #1 Selling Recipe Organizer](<a href=“Cook'n is the #1 Best-Selling Recipe Software”>Cook'n is the #1 Best-Selling Recipe Software) but I never really utilized it so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not.</p>

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<p>"You could always take the MacDonalds approach.</p>

<p>Mount the monitor on a high-up cabinet or off the ceiling with the display fed from a device somewhere else in the home."</p>

<p>Good idea, but it has some drawbacks: you can’t move the monitor around and the installation would require someone skilled with wiring and so on. Here is a cheaper sution: a tablet such as an iPad and a ziplock baggie. The touch screens work through a sheet of polyethylene. One can even cross the ingredients off the list with a Sharpie without damaging the screen.</p>

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<p>I don’t think that the wiring would be that hard to do but you could always go with a wireless monitor setup.</p>

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<p>We need an app with a voice interface.</p>