Recipe Collection Makeover

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I’m not afraid to admit that my recipe collection was a disaster. There were some handwritten on small cards that used to belong in a recipe box. There were some on magazine pages, torn out from God knows when. There were well-used and greasy printed recipes and a half-organized binder. Each time I was looking for a recipe, I had to search through papers and pages, only to be distracted by another recipe I had been looking for a few months back and couldn’t find. It was time to get serious. Since I’m always looking for a good way to streamline my day and organize things to save time, I decided to tackle the dreaded recipe collection.  It was in need of some serious TLC!

cover
Supplies Needed:
A large 3-ring binder
A box of sheet protectors (I used Staples brand)
Dividers
Label maker (or nice markers)

Step 1-Gather and Sort:
I took all of my recipes and put them into one pile. I sifted through each one and decided which I would keep and which I would toss. I realized that I had recipes from years ago that I still hadn’t tried and probably would never try. Why bother keeping them. Next, instead of dividing them by “genre” like cookies, poultry, or crockpot, I decided to sort them by month. For example, why would I cook a citrus shrimp kabob in January when my patio would be covered with snow?  My famous apple pie is always made in November, and I always get a hankering for pumpkin bread in October. It seemed natural to sort each recipe based upon the time of year I’m usually interested in cooking it.

magazine pageStep 2-Divide and Conquer:
Once I divided my recipes, I realized that there were some months that had fewer recipes, and other months where I felt the recipes could be combined. For example, I have a ton of cookie recipes for December, but many of the recipes I cook in July could also be cooked in August. Depending on your baking and cooking style, you may want to combine a few months as I did. If you prefer a more uniform binder, go right ahead and make 12 dividers!

multi dividers
Step 3-Keep it Clean (and neat):
All of the magazine recipes were simply placed into a sheet protector and right into the binder. Other recipes that looked really worn out were reprinted and fit to one page.  It’s much easier to follow a recipe that doesn’t go onto another page. For the recipe cards, I simply retyped them and added them to my printed recipe pile, placed them each in a sheet protector, and placed them into the binder.

mag pageStep 4-Digital Purge:
Each time I see a new recipe in my virtual mailbox, I always put it into a folder and then somehow forget about it. I went through my whole email box, reviewed each recipe, printed or tossed it, then deleted the email. I did copy and paste each recipe into a word file and sorted it into month folders on my computer. This way, if the recipe binder goes up in smoke, I still have an electronic copy.

fridgeStep 5- Use It, Don’t Lose It:
The binder is now in one of my kitchen cabinets and I hang the recipes I’m using for the week with a magnet on the side of my refrigerator. At the end of the month, I return all my “used” recipes back into the corresponding section in the binder.  If the recipe didn’t turn out as I had hoped, I simply toss it and move on! My husband hasn’t realized that he’s been eating chicken 60 different ways for the past two months, so it allows me to feel like we aren’t having the “same old” stuff all the time.  The other wonderful thing about this is that I now focus my search for ingredients that are in season or readily available so that I can save money and time at the grocery store.

Ready to try it out?  Although it seems complex, I did most of this while watching episodes of Homeland on DVR in a few hours.  Definitely wait until the kiddies are in bed so you can give it your full attention.

Do you have an organizational system for your recipes? I’d love to know your tips, so please comment below.

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