How do you store your recipes?

[Suzy Mouse]

I have a ton of recipes and have no idea how to organize them. Does anyone have any good suggestions??

 

[Swan]

This is bad but I keep my most used ones in a paper bag . I am going to get a computer program for them soon. I used to glue them onto a sheet in a spiral notebook.

 

[Twigs]

Lately I have been throwing them into a folder, but I try to glue them onto plain paper in a loose leaf notebook that I have divided into categories such as beef, chicken, veg. dishes, etc. I also glue a picture of the dish if it came from a magazine. I also have a separate binder for desserts because that section usually overflows and then I have to weed it out. And I do try to go through it every so often to get of recipes I am no longer interested in or ones we didn't like. I would like to get them into a computer program, but that task seems overwhelming to me.

 

[Spinning]

LADIES!!!!!! you must put this on little cards and then file them in order starting with appitizers! (also have a section for holiday!)
Yep! I have major issues with recipes! My mom was famous for having great ones only problem it took days to find where she stuck the recipe!
So I have a nice little box and cards...I have it all filed away! When I print off the internet I do it in the 4x6 format and then glue it to a card...:

 

[piratesmate]

I always kept mine in a box on index cards. However, after 25+ yrs of having them in the kitchen without an exhaust fan (we're renters & NO place we've ever lived had one) the cards had gotten kind of dark & grungy.

I made a recipe box as a shower gift for my new DDIL by typing the recipes on the computer, adding clip art and/or pix of the food & printed them on colored card stock. I used a rotary cutter to make my own 3x5 cards. I put them all in plastic sleeves from Current so they won't get as disgusting as mine!

The plan was to make a 2nd set for myself, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Usually what I do is look up the recipe on the computer (not in the kitchen) & write it on the back of an old Rolodex card. I keep them, but they're anoying.

 

[poohbear1029]

Originally posted by Spinning
LADIES!!!!!! you must put this on little cards and then file them in order starting with appitizers! (also have a section for holiday!)
Yep! I have major issues with recipes! My mom was famous for having great ones only problem it took days to find where she stuck the recipe!
So I have a nice little box and cards...I have it all filed away! When I print off the internet I do it in the 4x6 format and then glue it to a card...:

You mean shoved up in the cupboard above my stove, between the cookbooks isn't organized?

 

[Suzy Mouse]

What do you do when you find recipes in magazines? or if a friend gives you one on a large piece of paper? I have so many cut out and photocopied....I want them to look neat and organized but don't have the time to type them up.

 

[holycow]

I just got a 3 inch binder with a box of page protectors. Then just made an index...Thanksgiving, Halloweeen, Meat, poultry etc...and placed the recipes in the page protector...my problem is that if I put them on index cards I wouldn't be able to identify the recipe since I associate it with where I got it...mag... newspaper etc...

Holycow

 

[Annie&Hallie'sMom]

I used to have everything crammed into a box, then DH MADE me buy a magnetic photo album. I paste the recipes in there. And I can always add more pages later.

 

[cajunmommy]

I use a system similar to holycow's .... A 3-ring binder filled with page-protector sleeves. That way whether I've clipped a short column from the newspaper or scrawled one down on a notepad from work, they're still relatively neatly organized. (they used to just be stuck inside the cover of one of my cookbooks, or loosely gathered in a manila folder.) I usually pull out the page I need rather than working from the full book.
I've also started flagging my favorite recipes in my cookbook collection to save some time searching when I can't remember what book it came from.

 

[campinggal]

I use a three ring binder photo album- the kind with the 'magnetic' pages where you just peel back the plastic covering and put your photo/recipe in place and smooth the plastic back over.

Works great as it can handle all sizes and shapes and you can put multiple recipes on a page. When you need to use a recipe, you just take out the page. It also prevents the recipe from getting splashed upon as it has the plastic covering on it.

I bought tabs to adhere to the first page of each section to keep things organized by type of recipe- Beef, Fish, Pasta etc.

I'm up to four albums now.

 

[disykat]

I was going to put them on the computer..... but here is what I ended up doing.

First I went through them and ousted all the recipes I wouldn't realistically ever make. I forced myself to be real - this reduced my stash to a very manageable pile! (I figure I can find almost anything new I'd want to try on the net anyway - so I just kept mostly ones I'd tried and liked) Then I just stuck the clippings by categories in a 4X6 file box - folding them whatever way looked the neatest if necessary. It isn't the neatest thing I've ever seen, but now I can actually find the recipe I'm looking for.

Since they are in an enclosed plastic file box, they don't really get messed up. I figure that I've had some of the clippings for 20 years already - they'll be fine.

Kudos to all you people who are actually organized!

 

[arminnie]

I put mine on the computer <a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_8_9.gif' border=0></a> years ago. I added information about where I got the recipe and when I first fixed it or if I have never fixed it. I also uploaded it to my yahoo storage so I can get to my recipes even when away from home.

It is SO much easier to do a search on the computer than looking all over the house. I can never organize paper.

 

[eeyoreforever]

I also have mine in a three ring binder that is divided into sectons-meat, poultry, pasta etc. My problem though is sometimes deciding which category to put them in. If I have a casserole calling for ground beef and pasta, should that go in pasta or meat? I don't have a whole lot of recipes in mine, so I usually end up flipping through most of the book looking for something.