Organizing Your Recipes!

A friend of mine got one of those sticky-page photo albums. The kind with the film you lift up and press back down. You can put any and all sizes into it, and the pages are wipeable, and can come out of the photo album if you get the three ring binder kind. You don't have to copy all the recipes again, just trim them up and stick them on the page. You could even get pages from the other kind of album that have little sleeves/slots for pictures to hold the notecard ones and put them all in one book/binder. Then you could just slip them out of their spots to use them. Plus you can get a pretty album that you like, and just keep adding refill pack as you need them.

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I pasted mine on 8 1/2 x 11" paper and put them in sleeves and then in a binder. I love it, since I don't have to find them in the receipe books now.

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I use an electronic recipe program. I think it's called Living Cookbook. I put in the recipes, including a photo if I have one, and it tells me the calories, nutritional info, creates shopping lists, etc.

You can group recipes by type or by main ingredient. I have a group called Family Favorites and another called Party Favorites. You can even send them to print--one recipe at a time, or a whole cookbook. I have considered printing the whole load of them as a family cookbook to share. There is a link to a service and they print the books and mail them to you.

No matter how in depth you get with it, it's a great program and I love the features. I never have to search through stacks of notes and magazine clippings... Just search my files and prepare!

good luck!

www.thosecrazybeans.blogspot.com

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I had the same problem, so a few weeks ago my daughter and I went through all of my cooking magazines and ripped out the recipes we would like to try. We also went through all of the recipe cards and did the same, threw out those we didn't. We then took a 3 ring binder with sheet protectors and put the recipes in by category. This is our "try it" binder.

The recipes I love and have tested have gone into our "love it" binder, again in sheet protectors organized by category. It has taken me awhile to sort through these, but I also take an extra step to type up the "love it" recipes into Microsoft Word and print them out. I keep a running Table of Contents in the front of each section with page numbers so they are easy to find. The only organization that has gone into the sections is just the table of contents but when you can see it all on one page and know where to find the recipe you like it is much easier - good luck!

A three ring binder with plastic sleeves. They wipe off easily when you spill on them and you can just stick the torn out recipes into the pocket. If you have smaller cards glue 2 or 3 recipes to a piece of paper and stick them in.

This isn't going to be pretty, but what I did is tape all my single recipes (torn from magazines and such) to a piece of paper, copy it, then tear them all off and throw them away and tape on some more. Then, I have single sheets of paper I can put into a binder. I organized them into categories as well as possible. Oh, I also discovered that a gallon ziploc will take to a 3-hole punch well if folded over a bit and will make a "sheet protector" without an opening for storing those torn out recipes. Good luck!

I like the photo binder method with the non-sticky sheets. I use the pocket style ones. There's lots of times that there is a recipe on the back that I like too so I don't really want to tape it in or stick it down so if I just slide it in, I can still take it back out. Make sure to get dividers to keep it organized too, it makes looking for recipes so much faster.

Good luck.

I also use the binders with the sticky sheets. And when I'm feeling particularly organized (a rare event), I scan them onto my computer. I can import the pictures into MS Word with a text name for each so that I can search for them.

Have you thought of a photo album? The kind with the clear covers over sticky pages?

I use a big binder for my recipes. I can take pages I've torn from magazines or copied from a cookbook, insert then into plastic sleeves, and put into my binder. I have tabs, so the recipes are organized by category. Doing this helps me keep track of the recipes I actually use. It cuts down on having a million cookbooks and torn pages lying around.

I hear you! I have 2-3 "go-to" cookbooks, but the rest just take up space!

I finally realized I wasn't using them except for a couple of recipes once a year. I get most of my recipes off of the internet, from friends, etc.

I have a huge 3 ring binder with plastic sheet protectors in it (got a big box for cheap at Costco). I have dividers for different sections-- entrees, soups, breakfast / brunch items, etc. You can flip through pages quickly, leave the book open while cooking and since the recipes are covered in plastic, I can just wipe off spills after I'm done cooking.

I can slip old recipe cards in there, but most of my recipes are printed off the internet on 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper. This allows me to put new recipes I'm interested in all the time, then when I need creative inspiration, I've got lots of stuff that catches my interest.

If a recipe isn't good, I just rip the sheet out and toss it. If it's good, I'll often write on the paper the date I made it and a comment or two about it...especially if my husband or kids like it. This is also great because I will often change recipes for altitude, add spices, or adjust in other ways. Cheap pieces of paper allow me to mark up the recipe by hand (I always felt guilty doing that to a book and always wondered what I did differently when I went to make the recipe again).

I use a binder for my loose recipes too -

I taped recipes to a piece of blank paper and put them in sheet protectors. I had a few 2-sided recipes and those I taped directly to the sheet protector so I dont have to remove the card from the binder, I can just turn the page to see the back.

My sil uses a small photo album with sticky pages instead of pockets and uses that for her index cards and recipes she finds in the newspaper, etc.

I use a binder with page protectors and for recipes that I print off the computer as well as one's I just rip out of mags. I also have a quite a few of those recipe cards that were kept in a box but I just stick them in the sleeve protectors as well. Someday I will get tab dividers and divide the binder into meats, sides, desserts, etc. Good luck to you!

S.,

I am doing the same thing right now! I am going the binder and plastic sleeves route. I looked through some cookbooks for ideas of categories and then I am putting the full page recipes into sleeves and the card into photo sleeves (found both at Staples). I have also started to copy recipes into my own handwriting with my own notes so that when my kids get bigger and ask me how I make something, I can actually tell them (I have run into this problem when getting recipes from family members:). Anyhow, great job getting organized and best of luck choosing from all of these great ideas!

Happy spring!
M. P in Fort Collins

Like many answers, I use the binder/sleeve idea with different colored paper. I have a sheet protector in the front that I put all my torn out ones until I type them. I have a separate binder for craft recipes like homemade playdough, paper mache, etc. A friend of mine uses stickers as a border to get her smaller ones to paper and then puts them in a sleeve.

You said you don't want to type all your recipes - but I thought I would share what I was doing in case somebody else might want to do it or you want to do it in the future.

I have been slowly working on typing mine (a life long project I think!) I am saving them (AND backing them up!) so that I can easily print them out as a family cookbook that I can give to each of my children when they are older. I am thinking of looking into some computer programs (saw that somebody even mentioned it here!) that can help with this task.

They have recipe books with the sticky photo album type pages, but just getting a binder, and putting them in clear sleeves (either taped to a piece of paper or loose), and maybe some dividers is all you need. I also have the book that we use, and those of recipes that look good that I haven't tried yet. If we try it and like it, it goes into the main book.

I use a big heavy duty binder. I put all my recipes in those plastic see through pages. I use tab dividers to divide the sections. (they need to be the extra wide ones so the tab sticks out beyond the pages.)

If I have a buch of little 2" x 3" recipies I have cut of of magazines, I tape or glue them to a peice of copy paper, and then slip that paper into a plastic see through page as well.

I got an expandafile at the office products store. It's plastic, it has tons of pockets. It was cheap. Plenty of room for all my recipes, even larger ones like copied from books. All organized into catagories I choose and make. Much easier.

Since you don't want to copy the recipes, why not invest in a nice binder and some page protecters to slip the recipes into? They would do double duty as you could take them out of the binder to use, plus easily wipe off spills? Some binders have covers that you can slip paper into so you could decorate a sheet on the computer or by hand, whatever, as the "cover" decoration.

I did a binder taped all my cards in it copied what could be copied so forth and so on. I kept the books that I would use for I have this and don't know what to do with it (mostly fund raiser books) and my pillsbury.I sorted my recipes in the book by snacks chicken bread desserts etc. so I can go straight to what I am looking for. hope this helps some

I got some card stock and glued my loose recipes onto it, then put them in sheet protectors in a binder. I used a different colored paper for breakfast, dessert, dinner, salad, etc. so I could easily see where each section starts. The only down side is that you can't keep it in alphabetical order as you get new recipes, but I don't have a lot, so it works for me. Good luck!