Spring Cleaning: Recipe Organization That WORKS!
Maybe you’re like me and your cookbooks look like this:
Or this:
Or worse, this:
Just kidding, I love pinterest. 🙂
But stuffed bookshelves and toppling piles and crowded computer screens just weren’t cutting it for me. I like cooking with a recipe in front of me, earning it’s reputation in the flour and sugar crusted on the page.
Not in a book that won’t stay open or a computer that canNOT get dirty.
So, fed up, and determined to get rid of some unused cookbooks and actually USE some pinterest recipes, I busted out my trusty old friend.
Clear-view binder. Size 1″
First, I needed a cover.
1 piece of scrapbook paper + 7 letters cut out using my silhouette = awesomely simple {and cute!} cover page.
Then, I needed some organization. Easily solved by sticking old meal planners on the left {for future meal planning inspiration} and recipes in sheet protectors on the right.
And for a little more organization, I consulted my pinterest boards. See, typical cookbook categories don’t work for me. Mainly cause I don’t really cook with meats other than chicken, or create food from cultures other than American, Mexican or Italian.
Yes, I could stand to branch out. If it makes you feel better, I had a Thai Chicken Spring Roll for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen today, and it blew my mind. Could I like Thai food?! Except maybe CPK is not the best representation of Thai food.
Anyway.
I used Martha Stewart Sticky Tabs to turn my sheet protectors into dividers with cool title pages {I may or may not be borderline obsessed with the new MS line at Staples…}. Then, I created the sections of my recipe book according to my pinterest boards. Don’t laugh, it totally works for me. Which is why I organized my boards that way. And now my book.
Because usually, I’m not looking for a meal based on pork with a corresponding side dish. I’m looking for a meal I can throw in the Crock Pot that will cook itself, or something I can make this week that I can double and freeze for later.
So here are the categories I landed on:
Crock Pot Meals
Freezer Meals
Favorite Dinners
Healthy Meals
Kid-Friendly
Appetizers & Snacks
Breakfast Foods
Yummy Treats {read: NOT healthy}
Salads & Soups
And finally, I organized the recipes I already had printed off, and printed off my pinterest favorites. 🙂 I made sure to include a picture {to see what it should look like}, use a cute font {of course!}, and credit the online source {so I’d know where to find it if I needed to reference something}.
In the very near future, I’ll be going through most of the recipe books you saw on the shelf, and either purge the book after saving a few recipes, or save the book if it’s chock full of recipes I’ll use on a regular basis.
This spring is all about cutting the clutter and keeping ourselves organized, people!
I love my new recipe book. 🙂 Makes me want to cook!
What have you done to keep your recipes organized? Do you like using online sources or would you rather have a printed recipe in front of you?
Kayse Pratt serves Christian women as a writer + designer, creating home + life management resources that help those women plan their days around what matters most. She’s created the most unique planner on the market, helped over 400 women create custom home management plans, and works with hundreds of women each month inside her membership, teaching them how to plan their days around what matters most. When she’s not designing printables or writing essays, you’ll find Kayse homeschooling her kids, reading a cheesy novel with a giant cup of tea in hand, or watching an old show from the 90’s with her husband, who is her very best friend.
I also have a binder for my go-to recipes. The only recipes that go into the binder are tried and true recipes that I know I love. It has helped me so much! There is also a section for special meals like “Thanksgiving” so that everything is already together.
I’m working on this too. Currently, I have a pretty 2 1/2″ binder full of recipes from all over the internet that have earned their stains as we tried them in the past 3-4 years while we’ve been doing freezer cooking. I have 3 (gasp!) 3-inch binders full of recipes we want to try after tossing magazines, free recipe inserts from food products, etc., and probably another 1200 recipes I want to try on Pinterest. At some point when my boys aren’t diving off the couch & attempting to eat whatever small non-food objects they can find, I really want to print our favorites on pretty paper & add pictures of all of them. I hate that we don’t have some of my great-grandmother’s recipes for our favorite dishes, because I come from a long line of great cooks who never write down their recipes. Trying to change that for my kids 😉
Hi Kayse,
Will you be photocopying your favourites from your recipe books or typing / handwriting them on paper?
Sounds like a fantastic idea. I don’t like the clutter either
I used to type them out, but now I handwrite them, for the most part. 🙂
I’ve had a recipe binder for years, and I love it! Mine has the more traditional categories, since an aunt initially made it for me as a gift. But all of the recipes are printed on pretty paper and it makes me smile. Several of the recipes in there are ones that she initially added and I haven’t tried all of those yet, but when I try a new recipe that I (and now my husband) like, I print it out and add it. I still have several cookbooks, and a ridiculous number of recipes on Pinterest. But I use Pinterest more as a place to save recipes I’m interested in making, and then move them to a board for things I actually made off of Pinterest along with notes in the comments when I do try them. And since mine are more traditional categories, I’ve recently started keeping a list on Evernote of the most tried-and-true recipes by those easier categories, like crock pot, along with which location to find them so I can incorporate the cookbook recipes I do use regularly.
Love the recipe organizer. Just spent half an hour last night digging for a recipe. I am going to work on this project this summer and make 2 extra. That way when my daughters get married they will have all of their favorites when they leave!!
This is so Awesome!!!