We love Allrecipes.com and reference it frequently. I love the pictures, recipes, comments, reviews, and ratings. We've found some great recipes on there. We enjoy trying new foods and mixing up the tried, true, and familiar with some new added spice and variety.
Often, when I find a new recipe, I scribble down some notes at the computer on a random piece of paper and then I take it into the kitchen where we, obviously, cook. As you can imagine, we have little pieces of paper with recipes on them all over the place.
We often dream of how cool it would be to have some sort of drop down computer that is mounted underneath our cabinets that opens up and, with the touch of a button, gives us recipes to read and follow. But since we're not George and Judy (Jetson, c'mon, keep up), we have random papers.
We also have a recipe box that holds 3X5 cards. It's the same one I've had since starting college. It is cute and labeled, but filled to overflowing.
So now, what to do to organize the recipes . . . we've contemplated (and lean to) making a recipe blog. That way it's online, easy to locate, easy to navigate, easy to share, and handy for when our kids have their own kitchens. Plus, Thing 1 would probably thoroughly enjoy being our data entry worker with that and we'd enjoy her enjoying that, too, not to mention the benefit of getting it done. (We'd pay her. We're not total task masters.)
But even with the blog, you still have the computer-isn't-in-the-kitchen issue. One might suggest a laptop, but our laptop is often in the clinic with the doctor and the patients and in use. So that wouldn't always work. Our other computers are desktops.
We also like having a book of some kind with paper recipes to read and hold tangibly in our hands, you know, like a book! None of that new-age hand-held Kindle stuff. So, might there be a way to do both? Should we blog and print up each recipe and put it in our book? And how should we put them in the book? Hole punch and put it in? Slip into slipcovers? What to do! Can you tell we're doing a lot of organizing around here?
So, what do you do? How do you organize your recipes?
5 comments:
We bought a tv on clearance after christmas that can be hooked up to the internet. My husband is mounting it to the wall this weekend and we have a wireless keyboard and mouse to use with it. I have a folder in email that I have a ton of recipes in so I can put my fingers on something fairly quickly. Putting the tv on the wall also makes room for my kitchenaid mixer on the counter!
(that's my aunt peggy, stacy, in case you were wondering).
When I find a recipe I absolutely love, I print it out and put it in plastic sheet protectors (like scrapbooking pages) and put it in a 3-ring binder. I have it organized with dividers according to appetizer/main dish/side dish/dessert/drinks/etc. and then alphabetized within each divider to make finding a recipe easier. I keep that book in the pantry and use it like crazy. the sheet protectors are good because you can just wipe them off when they get splattered.
I also have a big word document organized the same way, and when I get a good recipe I copy and paste it into the document. someday i'll print it all into a big recipe book, but for now, i just do the 3-ring binder.
Sorry, I'm a scrap of paper kind of gal. Post again when you've got it all figured out, so we can copy you. Or maybe you could publish multiple copies of your recipe book and give them out as blog prizes. *hint*hint*
My method isn't very efficient, I think I like Emily's. I just have a 3 x 5 index card box that I stuff them into. It's getting too full, so maybe I should reevaluate, too?
Great ideas, everyone! Thanks!
I'm so proud of myself--I knew that was your Aunt Peggy even before you said something, Emily! So cool. (Thanks, Peg!)
Jessica and lbs, your methods sound like mine. I think I might do what Emily does, but put it on a blog instead of a Word document for easy sharing . . . (lbs, you could have instant access!) :)
Post a Comment