Recipe Organization

By Natalie

How are you storing your recipes? I REALLY want to know.

Back in the day, circa 2010, I would print all the recipes I loved and file them in a HUGE binder. The binder had chicken, beef, pork, etc dividers. Then when I would sit down to menu plan I would flip through each section and plan 4 beef meals to have on every Monday of the month. I'm not that rigid but you get the point.

Jump ahead now to 2012. Currently I'm using 2 different means my Google reader and Pinterest. Whenever I see a meal that I like I pin it on Pinterest in the hopes that when I'm menu planning for the month I'll come back to it. The down fall of Pinterest is I don't find it that easy to search through your boards. I think I also need to start dividing my Pinterest boards  into meat, pasta, seafood, desserts, etc.

With google reader, I search the entire reader for a main idea, like pasta or seafood. Then I just write the recipe down on my paper calendar for the menu planning. When the day comes to make the meal I pull it up on my phone or laptop and look at it while I cook. Much greener! If google reader was to ever go away I would be lost.

How do you stay organized? Are you like Carrie and use Evernote?

Comments

[Dawn K.]

HAHAHA. I wish I had recipe organization. Over the years I've clipped, printed, and combined them all into a spiral notebook. GLUED. It's so junior-high collage that it's not even funny. One of my goals for 2012 is to collect all the recipes which I use regularly, and print my own cookbook.

A while back, Cagey at rancidraves.com linked to Paper Coterie and I'm thinking I might go with their format. I'll be interested to see if any other commenters have other great ideas!

[Melody_NC]

I too used to have a massive amount of bookmarks for recipes I wanted to make. A few years ago I set up a gmail account for recipes. I copy the recipe and the URL into an email and send it to that account with the recipe title as the email subject. Then if I have time I use labels that I've set up in that email account to identify the recipe further (salad, entree, chicken, dessert, etc.) It's searchable so that's nice and I can also access it from my phone. At times I'll just send the blog post via email through Google Reader although I'd rather do my own email so I can edit out any unneccessary pics, blog text, etc. and just have the recipe info.

[Molly]

Evernote, yes. Always. I have files and files of recipes clipped from magazines, but almost exclusively use Evernote when meal planning. The genius is that you can search by ingredient, so you don't have to remember where you filed that yummy sounding recipe.

[Wendi]

I do a little of everything! My main recipe book is actually a photo album that holds two 4x6 recipe cards per page (four total, front and back). I added my own tabs on the side for soup, bread, veg, etc. This is the go-to recipe book for the family -- all of our beloved recipes are in there.

I have a folder in gmail for recipes that get emailed via Tasty Kitchen, Allrecipes, etc. I have a Pinterest board (rarely used -- I'm still not hooked on it yet...I know I'm weird). There's also a Recipes bookmark file that I scroll through when I'm looking for something new to make.

As for meal planning, I have an Excel spreadsheet that I use to plan one week's worth of meals. I made general categories (Beef, Chicken, Pasta, Soup, Grill, etc.) and just typed the name of all my family's favorite recipes in each category (I used my recipe book for reference).

To plan a week's worth of meals, I consider how hot/cold it will be that day, whether we have time to linger over dinner or would I be better off with a crockpot meal if there's not a lot of time for dinner prep, and then I copy/paste a recipe from the various categories into the Monday through Sunday slots. I usually try to alternate beef one day, chicken the next, that sort of thing. It sounds really complicated but it makes meal planning so much easier for me!!

[Jen L.]

I do use Pinterest a lot, but I also have an "old school" binder full of handwritten and printed recipes from way back. I keep it on my bakers' rack so I can just grab it when I'm cooking. Honestly, though, most of my best recipes online, either here on Food Lush or on my own blog! I spend a lot of time googling my own stuff. ;)