Cooks and bakers: how do you organize your recipes?

[redlight]

The title basically says it all.

 

[disykat]

I think I'm highly organized in an unorganized fashion. I really didn't want to do them scrapbook style or put them all on the computer. That's just too much work for me. I just wanted to organize my scraps of paper, file cards, magazine clippings, and printouts from the internet.

I have two 4X6 file boxes with dividers and I just file all the clippings etc. by category. I have the categories fairly well separated (the file dividers came in a package of 26 for the alphabet, I just use the other side) so I have less stuff to sort through. I have all my desserts, baked goods,etc. in one and all the rest, soups, salads, beef, poultry, etc. in the other.

Although my oldest recipes are on 3X5 cards, the 4X6 size is much better to fit in all the odd sizes. Full sheets can easily be folded and filed.

 

[HeatherH]

I print most of my recipes from the internet. I have a HUGE binder, with dividers by category, three-hole punch them...that's it.

For the ones that are old 3 x 5 cards or ripped from a magazine, if I don't tape or paste them onto an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper...I just tuck them in the binder pocket.

I also have one of those clamp holders that allows you to stand up a sheet, or several sheets of paper, to read from. If I have several recipes with dinner I just stack them in there. Works great!

 

[staley7580]

I have a little note card box I keep all of mine in. Its the way my mom did it.. and I sort of take that after her. That doesnt mean Im turning into my mom, does it?

 

[DisneyFirefly]

Most of my recipes are in books or online. I have a laptop (currently out of commission), so if I'm using a recipe I have online, I just take it to the kitchen with me. My bookmarks are organized by what the recipe is (sweets, entree, appetizer, etc). I've been meaning to start a binder, but I don't really have the money to be buying ink cartridges all the time for all the recipes I want to print.

 

[NMAmy]

I recently reorganized mine when I was ill and stuck on the couch for several days.

Two binders--one is for recipes that I've tried. It's organized by appetizers, soups, side dishes, entrees, desserts, etc with the the recipes in page protectors.

The other binder is for recipes I've clipped but haven't had a chance to try yet. Each page protector is filled with all the recipes with a certain ingredient--chicken, fish, beef, pork, vegetarian, desserts.

I decided to do this because I got sick of sorting through a bunch of loose recipes I'd never used before to find the particular one I was looking for. Now when I want to try a new recipe for chicken, I just pull out that particular page and sort through the recipes tucked inside.

 

[barkley]

i've got 4 large shelves of cookbooks in my homeoffice so i can grab those easily. recipies that i've been given by friends or family i transfer into a small spiral bound book i received over 20 years ago. it's broken into types of recipies and has all the common ones for holidays so it's easy to remember what's in it. anything i've cut out of a magazine or the like i just have in a cheap folder with pockets on the side (like the 40 cent ones you get for kids for school). some of them are in plastic sleeves cuz they are getting so old, others are just drop filed. i also keep all the instruction books for the less than regularly used appliances in that folder (pasta maker, bread maker, special kitchen aide attachments....).

 

[Papa Deuce]

www.recipezaar.com

It offers a free and a paid version. I use the paid version because it offers so many more options, but the free is pretty good as well. Plus I like the way I can find a recipe to make by looking at my available ingredients.