Get your cookbooks and recipe cards cooking with this plan.
By Ann Springer
Piles and piles of new recipes you’ve been wanting to try? Endless cookbooks but no place to store them? Do you have recipes scrolled out on 3 x 5 cards and others torn from the pages of a magazine? Most people have more recipes than they could ever cook in a lifetime, and the Internet has made cookbooks almost obsolete because they make recipes so easy to locate. However, everyone has their tried and true family favorites or recipes that have been passed down for generations that they cherish. The Web won’t replace these classics.
Your desire to try new recipes probably doesn’t match up with your hectic weekly routine and real-life plans. Once you compile them from all the nooks and crannies in the house in which you’ve stashed them, you may realize that you have more recipes than you could possible ever try. It also consumes greater energy to put your brain to use on a new recipe than to just whip up a meal you’ve made a million times.
Before you toss out all of your cookbooks or give up hope that you’ll ever try one of those new recipes that caught your eye, just remember that you need to get organized before you can be a culinary success.
I recommend you begin by streamlining the many recipes you love and compiling them into a three-ring binder. Decorative, fun binders make the final product look more like a cookbook. Or, you can design a cover and slide it in the front pocket. Photocopy each 3 x 5 card or magazine clip out onto a 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper and slide them into protective covers to prevent spills. Use dividers to separate the recipes into categories: appetizers, salads, main dishes, desserts, etc.
Next, take your pile of recipes you’ve been wanting to take for a test spin and carefully sift through them so you are down to the best 25-30 you really want to create in your own kitchen. Place those on the inside from pocket of the binder. As you plan your menu each week, pull out the recipes and choose one recipe you’d like to sample. It’s probably only realistic to choose one day per week that you think you’ll have the time and the energy to devote to it. If you decide it’s a winner you can photocopy it and add it to your personalized cookbook.
While this initial step may take time it’s worth it to have all of your recipes in one place. You’ll never be hunting down Grandma’s Christmas Cookies again amidst the chaos of preparing for the holidays. Or trying to remember which cookbook has the chicken recipe your husband loves. It also makes it easy to make additional copies which make great gifts for friends and family. Imagine all the recipes you can compile over a 20 year period that you can then share with your children as they start their own homes. It will give them the comforts of home even if they’re miles away.
