Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Spring Organizing

I feel like a new blogger. I dusted (sorely needed), decluttered (painfully needed), filed (desperately overdue) and organized (excruciatingly necessary) my desk and workspace. My desk looks awesome and makes me feel good every time I sit and look at my things.

{pause for another look and grin}

My friend P asked me about organizing family recipes, so let's talk organization.

Awhile ago I started a system of saving my recipes in a binder filled with pocket pages that are laminated. They are great for protecting my recipes from splashes of food stuff and for keeping small recipes together. I gather the recipes I write out by hand, cut out from magazines, or have printed of the internet and tape them on 8x11 sheets of paper that I slip into the laminated pages:
Before I had kids, I also kept a printed sheet of paper in the front of the binder with my running list of "make-again" meals grouped by category. This would serve as a speedy list to view when doing menu planning. I would also include cookbook recipes with something like this "CL 2003 p. 89" (translation Cooking Light 2003 Recipes Cookbook, page 89) so I could find those too. I think the last time I updated this sheet may have been 2003.

However, I am wondering what you do for keeping your recipes neat and readily-accessible. I am betting that you all have great ideas I haven't even thought of yet. With my organizing rampage in full swing (next stop: my bedroom closet), who knows what I will have accomplished by the end of the week.

Keep life sweet-
SPC

8 comments:

JerseyBaby said...

Congrats on your clean desk!

I also keep favorite recipes (like your lasagna recipe) in a three-ring binder, inside of sheet protectors. I've tried to wean through it lately, throwing away recipes that, like clothes, I haven't used in the last few years (or ever!). My next step is to organize them by appetizers, quick dinners, desserts, etc.

The biggest thing I did though was to move all of my cookbooks to our storage room. I haven't opened one in a year or two. Plus, I've gotten to the point where I only want to make things that friends have recommended or that have ratings or reviews. Cleared up a lot of cabinet space, too! And if I still haven't looked at them in another year, they're off to the library as a donation.

Slacker Mama said...

I don't keep mine neat and readily accessible. I have binder, too, but I don't have sheet protectors. So all of the recipes that I write down or clip are shoved in the front pocket of the binder -- this accounts for 85% of the recipes I use! The rest are cookbooks, of which I have tons and use very few.

It's on my "to do" list...right after organizing the pictures I have strewn all over the house.

Deep in the Heart said...

I have the binder with dividers for courses. I got a laptop this year that is kept in the kitchen, so now I usually download from the internet and save it that way - or the recipe boxes most websites have. Haven't really looked into recipe software yet. I also remember Real Simple mentioning a sevice where you send in all your paper copies and they send you back a book - or a CD. Thought about that for my mom.

Anonymous said...

I have a three ring binder that I really need to go through and weed out unused recipes. It is stuffed past capacity now. Our dear friend M placed a bunch of the recipes into their sleeves for me a couple years ago. Maybe she will want to go come over and clean it up again....

Renee

Steel Magnolia said...

I do the binder thing, but really need to be more organized with it. I really want to get a laptop to have in the kitchen to store everything there...

JerseyBaby said...

Steel Magnolia - last night while I was preparing dinner, the kids were at the island watching video podcasts on my laptop, while eating edamame. And no fingers were burnt, no one fell down (Slacker Mama) but they were still close by and not sucked into a tv show. A little bit of dinner-prep-time zen... I highly recommend the laptop in the kitchen!

Sweet Pea Chef said...

Thanks for all the great ideas. I too have thought about the laptop idea...we are going to be shopping for a new computer here shortly. My dream would be to have a dedicated desk area in or right off the kitchen, but some people say it just collects clutter. Hmmm...

Jersey Baby, thanks for the idea about going through the cookbooks periodically and donating...I think I am long overdue to do so!

Anonymous said...

I did ii! I cleaned up and re-organized by recipe binder. I now have a second binder that just holds desserts, breads, and brunch recipes. Thanks for the encouragement to get more organized!

I have a laptop in the kitchen or sometimes on the dinning room table, but for actually cooking, it works better for me to have the print outs in the plastic sleeves or the cookbook on the stand.