Cookbooks... to keep or not to keep?
What got me searching this subject was an post from Laura, over at Org Junkie, who did a series of posts on this subject, that you can start reading here (great minds think a like I always say).
If you didn't know my February focus has been the kitchen, so why not talk about recipes and cookbooks, right?
I really for see there being two problems with recipes and keeping them organized.
1. Recipes are random. Organizing them will always be challenging because they are random sizes, and sometimes randomly used. If you find a basic format that you like in managing them, stick with it. Some basic methods might be a three ring binder, recipe box or file folders.
2. If you like recipes, you will always have a lot of them. It's important to set some limits on what you will clip and/or the number of cookbooks you keep. Some limits might be for example; Cookbook, only keep the ones that you have more than 5-10 recipes inside that you enjoy.
Me personally, I love to clip recipes from magazines and the paper, not to mention, I like getting them from friends and family. However, the idea of sitting down and creating this elaborate system with all sorts of categories or food groups seems insane to manage and way too time consuming for me to keep up.
I have a file folder in the kitchen (also a folder on my PC) for all my recent clipped recipes that I want to try. There is no sense in sorting or creating categories, because, on any given day is usually less than 20 recipes in that folder. Remember, these are only recipes I want to try, not recipes I have tried and want to keep. Those go somewhere else.
My system for organizing my recipes is very simple. One of my favorite cookbooks is the Classic Cookin' with Betty Crocker. About 7-8 year ago, I donated the book (which had some missing pages) and bough the CD program for my computer. Here is where I keep all my kept recipes I like. Once I try something and I like it, I load it into my program on my PC. I like having less paper to manage and when someone asks me for a copy, I can email it to them.
My advice on cookbooks and recipes is simple. Keep the books you know you will use and don't clip it, unless you know you will make it.
Posted by Megan Spears at 2/23/2009 12:45 PM 
Categories: Meal Plans and Cooking, Tips, Household Spaces
Categories: Meal Plans and Cooking, Tips, Household Spaces
Sounds like a great system Megan. I'd never heard of that software before.