Get Your Recipes Together!    

By Monica Resinger

How do you keep your recipes organised?  

Brandy:

How do you keep your recipes organised?  

I don't! At least not very well...

I have a recipe box (made with plastic canvas needlepoint) that's filled with recipes I seldom use and I have a file on the computer filled with recipes I want to try sometime. And then I have a few recipe books that are on the top shelf in the kitchen where it takes a stepstool to get them...

But I print out recipes from the forum here mostly and try those, then I stuff the copies in a drawer. I know exactly where they are.  

Dear Brandy & All, I must say that I DON'T keep my recipes organized.  I do have a large 3-ring binder of recipes that are sure-fire, maNy of which I've created myself.  BUT, I mostly look through my many cookbooks' indexes to see recipes that use an ingredient that I want to use up.  A cookbook without a good index is an abonimation to my mind!  Recipes from cookbooks that are sure-fire I write down on my own index on teh front blank page of the cookbook.  This is lousy organization, I know....

Yours in Him, Deb 

I have cook books that I keep, a recipe program and a binder that I keep printed recipes in. I frequently forget to save my data and I have lost it all more than once.

 I have many cookbooks but really only a few that I use a lot. Other receipe < I print and stick away on a shelf. DD and I have been working on writing out family receipes in a notebook. We have talked about putting it together in book form  with family pictures of the person that uses that one. WE have some from family that are dead. Some from the two Grandma that are old and in poor health. Our goal is for next Christmas, then use them for gifts. Maybe it will happen. I do think that in a family , it is important to pass down the family favorites in written from so they dont disappear. Old Testament talks about telling our children and our childrens children all that G'd has done for us, to give testimony. In families, receipes are part of our history if you combine them with pictures and stories. Just my thoughts, Babs

Last year for Christmas I made up a notebook of Family recipes and I gave them also a cd with the family recipes on them

I copy recipes I want to keep to a folder and then I put them in a folder I down to a cd..

this works for us they get updated really form me and their aunts and each other .

I have a long recipe file and several smaller files and a number of cookbooks.  I use the Betty Crocker sometimes but it often calls for cans of soup containing MSG.  I do like the old Modern Family Cookbook by Meta Given and also one by Gladys Taber, probably Stillmeadow in the name, as I enjoy reading all her Stillmeadow books.

Babs, you might be able to find books in your library on scrapbooking recipes.  I remember borrowing one after a talk on scrapbooking.  It featured family pages with pictures, copies of original hand-written recipes so they were acid free, etc. 

You can also get scrapbooking kits with different themes by searching for exact words "recipe scrapbook" but these kits are somewhat expensive.  A local craft store sells embellishments and stickers, and cut plain cardstock, mounted a computer-printed recipe card, put recipe charms on each of four different colors and the store sold out of recipe charms in a flash. 

Of course, if you have some retro artwork, sometimes available free on the internet for private use, that's always fun to include too.

Obviously, this is one of my own goals too, but I have to work it into a busy schedule.  Maybe between 2 & 4 AM when I have nothing better to do, lol.  (Just joking, I'm usually asleep!)

Lynnea the Dogmom

 Lynnea, thanks , that is a good idea.I have a friend that does Creative Memories. I will talk to her.  I do have a DS that draws. So will use some of his drawing. DH found a place that will actually publish them for you at a reasonable price. You can do one or one hundred copies. If I ever get this finished and then save up some money..........Babs

 I have a make it yourself cookbook- once I use a recipe 4 or 5 times, I sit a kid down to copy it in!  Our family also photocopied a 24 page recipe book a few years ago for Christmas.  I have a stack of printed recipes in the kitchen, and some in my farmer's market 3 ring binder.