While many of us enjoy cooking, it isn't always easy to
keep track of our impressive recipe collections. In order
to make your recipes easier to find (and not to mention
giving your patience a break!), we're going to talk about a
few ways you can get your recipes organized.
Recipe Book
Instead of storing your recipes in the "haphazard shoebox"
fashion, how about converting them into a nice recipe book?
If most of your recipes are on index or recipe cards, a
photo album with plastic sleeves may work particularly well
for you as long as the card fits comfortably in the slot.
If you have quite a large collection of recipes, try
obtaining a large family photo album that allows eight to
twelve slots per sleeve (front and back). The order you put
the cards in is totally up to you, as your recipe book
should reflect your preference. Some people prefer to sort
based on main dishes, desserts, breads/pastries, beverages,
etc., while others prefer alphabetical order.
If you don't have your recipes on cards, or if you're like
most people, you might have your recipes on papers and
cards of all shapes and sizes. If this is the case, you
might want to think about typing them all up and printing
them off. After all of your recipes are transferred to this
new format, the next step is to get a binder (three ring
binders work well) and some tabbed dividers. Label each
divider by the category you wish (ie: type of meal,
alphabetical order, etc.) and get to work punching holes in
your recipe sheets to accommodate the binder's rings. If
you prefer, you can purchase plastic sleeves to keep your
sheets spill-proof—which is highly recommended to
counter those splatters of sauce, batter, or grease that
always tend to smudge our favorite recipes.
Whether you use a photo album or a binder, don't be afraid
to get creative with your recipe book. Get some
construction paper and glue or clip clip pictures from
magazines. There's nothing wrong with adding a dash of
imagination that might even inspire your cooking!
eRecipe Catalog
The Internet is not only a great place to search through
millions of recipes, but it's also handy for storing the
ones you already have. Sites like WeGottaEat and OneTSP are
free to sign up and allow you to add your own recipes by
simply typing them up. Yes, this can be quite tedious if
you have a lot of recipes, but just imagine how easy it
will be to find a recipe by simply typing in a keyword and
clicking "search." You can also browse thorough members'
recipes and send recipes to friends and family. Online
recipe storage sites are very user friendly, so you don't
have to be particularly computer savvy to utilize this
great feature. Also, by storing your recipes online you can
easily include pictures that would otherwise mean added
bulk to your recipe collection.
Software
Say you like the idea of easily searching for and pulling
up your recipes, but you aren't too keen on relying upon an
Internet connection. You might not want to totally rule out
the option of a computerized recipe book. There is a wealth
of recipe software available for download on the Internet.
Many of them are classed as "freeware," which means that
you can download and use the software for free. Some
cooking software is available online for purchase, but they
do throw in some handy "extras" that are worth the money,
such as measurement calculators and converters, meal
planning and shopping lists, and nutritional value
calculators.
These are just a few ways that you can free up that recipe
drawer and simplify the entire task of cooking from a
recipe. Best of luck in whichever method you choose to
organize your recipes—and happy cooking!
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This article is brought to you by
The Platinum Recipes Collection:
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The Platinum Recipes Collection is the Internet's Most
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