From the category archives:

project organization

I guess I could abbreviate it to “PO” because that’s what Ken was when he found out about the mistake I made. Not really … he doesn’t get upset about stuff like that. And for those wondering, it wasn’t a life-altering mistake or anything … we’re not going to lose our house or cars or anything, it just made things a little difficult in a stressful time. It’s all taken care of now, and life goes on.

When we took apart the hutch and moved it into the breakfast nook, I moved all of my cookbooks into it. But as me and my mom were moving them, I remembered a recent post I read on Organizing Junkie about donating cookbooks you don’t use. The idea was met with a little resistance among some women, but I am NOT attached to cookbooks. I have a few favorites, and I do tend to collect the old Southern church cookbooks since they have the BEST comfort food recipes, but I could easily do without a few of the other ones. In addition to my paper cookbooks, I also have a virtual cookbook on Delicious, as well – you can check it out if you want.

Anyway, I decided to try to consolidate my most-used recipes into one binder. Since this will be a binder I use often, I bought a pretty one on clearance from Target.

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The first page is a print-out of my Google calendar menu plan for the current month.

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Then, I have all of my recipes divided into the following sections: appetizers, beef, bread, breakfast, cakes, chicken, cookies, dessert, fish, pasta/rice, pork, salads, soups, veggies.

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I used clear page protectors since cooking is messy.

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Or maybe I’m the only messy cooker out there? ;)

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I plan to |1| print all of my recipes that are stored online and then print them as I save them, and then |2| go through and type up the recipes from the 4×6 cards my mom made me when I moved out on my own, and then |3| go through my cookbooks and type up the recipes I want to keep so I can donate the books I don’t need anymore.

So this is potentially a HUGE project that I’m not going to finish today, but I’ve made a good dent in it.

My ultimate goal is to end up with a binder (or 2) of recipes that I actually use … so if I find a recipe, make it, and end up not liking it, it goes in the recycle bin.

Now it’s your turn … how do you organize your recipes?

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