If you are a recipe-holic, like me, you probably have scads of magazines, cuttings from newspapers, that may even be as old as your mother, and pages of favorite and not-so-favorite recipes lying around helter-skelter in a drawer or some other hiding spot in your house.
I recently decided to fix this conundrum so that I can find the recipes I really use and get rid of those I don't.
I had recently decluttered my bookshelves and found myself in possession of 12 empty binders, one of which was a 4". I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to get my recipe files organized so that I could find what I wanted.
I took out the binder, selected different dividers and included a vinyl pocket keeper to hold miscellaneous things like charts and information about herbs, foods, etc.
Day one: (This took all of about 30 minutes from start to finish)
I set up the binder in an order I like. Each divider tab is labelled with the following, but you may decide to add others as you see fit:
- Salads & Hors d'oeuvres
- vegetables
- rice & potatoes
- grains & breads
- fish
- chicken
- pork
- beef
- lamb
- cakes & pies
- candies
- cookies & bars
- Misc.
- Yellow pocket folder for miscellaneous information
You may wish to add soups, marinades, casseroles, etc. or just file those under miscellaneous.
Next, I took out all the files from the pendaflex folders and divided them into piles according to heading: chicken, fish, etc.
I added the loose recipes to the piles as well and began with salads & hors d'ouevres. I have several of those recipes, as well as others, already printed on copy paper. The goal is to get all recipes copied onto plain copy paper and inserted into the appropriate section in the binder. Not having tons of these recipes that were loose encouraged me to get the section done. If you don't set a goal, and succeed right away, you will be tempted to just give up or continue to put it off until hell freezes over and you can ice skate forever! I encourage you to start small: only plan for 30 minutes at a time, unless you have a major burst of adrenaline from your energy drink or just plain fed-uppedness, to fuel your drive. Then, by all means, work until you can't see straight anymore!
There! That feels good. You got started and now you can continue each day for whatever time you can spare until it is complete.
One of the things I noticed as I began to organize the recipes is that I had saved many of those prepared card-stock, laminated style recipe cards that come in the mail every now and then. Those are very sturdy, so I decided that I would start each section with those, punching holes in appropriate places so the cards fit properly. I started with the smaller ones and then followed up with the larger ones in each section. Then, the recipes on plain copy paper followed:
Day Two: (Mind you, I have been recently unemployed, so I have time to kill, unlike many of you who may be reading this! I advise that you stick to what ever time frame you have in your busy day or attempt to finish one section at a time.)
The effort you put into this now will definitely be worth it in the end...stay tuned to see...
I killed about three hours in the morning of the second day of this project. I set about to do everything except the desserts because, if you are at all like me, you have more desserts than Jabba the Hut could eat in two sittings! We must love our sweets.
I made sure that I laid out the recipes on the copier glass so that as many as could fit on one page were there. Make sure to leave enough room on the edge to punch holes so you do not punch a hole or two into the directions in the recipe...something I noticed after the fact!
I also care about not wasting paper, so if you also care, as you should, then make sure to use both sides of the paper when making copies! This will cut down on the space you use in the binder too and allow you to add even more recipes!
Four recipes on one page..notice I did not leave enough room for holes on this page. I will not make the same mistake again!
Notice that both sides of the paper allow you to add more recipes and you will have not wasted space in your recipe binder.
Today is day three and I will complete the dessert section by lunch time, causing me to keep busy enough not to stop and eat any of the caramels I made the other day!
Come back tomorrow for an update and more ideas on organizing your binder...Donna
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Donna Luna-blogger
