Recipes from relatives and all the magazines that you scour – are yours all over the place? If you’re anything like me, your plan is try all of them one day, but doesn’t your pile just keep growing? It can be hard to let them go though, I know, I’ve been there. Sometimes however, it can pay to have a quick flick through them. Some I wonder why I ever kept in the first place.
So grab your pile now and start weeding out those that will never really be tried. While you’re at it, get them a bit more organized. Perhaps order them by course or by main ingredient; anyway that makes sense to you.
Organizing recipes – or anything else – starts, with eliminating the clutter. If you have too many recipes to get through now in one go, set aside 10 minutes per day or a couple of evenings to get your recipes in some sort of shape where you might actually use them.
If you need some help with which ones to toss in the trash:
- Check the prep time – are you really going to spend 2 hours making an evening meal?
- Look at the ingredients. If more than one family member can’t stand them, get rid of the recipe. No one wants to slave away in the kitchen preparing something that won’t get eaten.
- Is the estimated cost of ingredients ridiculously high, like more than going out to eat? If so, why bother.
When you’re left with those that are sure you will get round to trying, store them somewhere nice, perhaps a book, box or drawer. When they have been tried and passed muster, copy them onto recipe or index cards and store them in a recipe box – the cuter the better. Ones that aren’t so great after all can be thrown away with the leftovers.
Ok, now for those recipes from Grandma and other important women…those you most likely won’t be throwing away. Well, if they include rhubarb or gooseberries, feel free to toss! But for those that don’t you need to give them the place of honor and respect in your kitchen they deserve. There are a few good ways to do this…
- Put the originals in photo-safe page protectors in a binder for quick and easy use.
- Tuck the originals away for safe-keeping to be handed down to the next generation after copying them onto recipe cards.
- Scan them onto a disc to be used on the computer or printed off in book form to create your own family cookbook. By the way, this makes a great gift for family members or to be sold at family reunions to help pay for reunion expenses.
Some other methods for keeping your recipes organized include transferring them to electronic format on your computer or online (check out http://getsetorganize.com/ for more information on this) or recording them in a blank cookbook (kind of like a journal). You’ll have an inkling of what will work best for you, so be inspired and make it happen.