Once again, I have taken inspiration from A Bowl Full of Lemons. I'm never quick enough to take part in the weekly challenge but I am loving the ideas and reading what other people do.
I've always kept a recipe binder, in fact I have four. One is my "tried and tested" and the other three are recipes that have been pulled out of magazines and the internet etc that I haven't tried yet (and let's face it, 95% of them will probably never get out of the file...).
Whilst I refer to my tried and tested binder regularly I have to admit, I've not updated it in a long time so there were many recipes that had been shoved into a box in the kitchen and not made into the binder. I took this virtual kick-up-the-behind as an opportunity to finally organise them and get myself up-to-date.
My recipe binder looks like this;
A bog-standard lever arch file from Emma Bridgewater as it happens to fit in with my kitchen colours and style. I chose the dividers inside because they match the dots on the folder. What does that say about me? Obsessive?
I've neatly filed my recipes into the following categories, making the labels on my handy Dymo labelmaker;
- Dinners
- Light Bites
- Salads
- BBQ
- Baking
- Desserts
- Party Food
- Jams & Chutneys
- Christmas
- Easter
Overtime I may need to split the "dinners" section into subsections (what a geek!) and at some point I may alphabetise them in the individual sections (!) but as I haven't yet got them all filed, I'll save that for another rainy day.
Some of the recipes have been printed off the internet, some are handwritten or copied from blogs, others are old pieces of paper from my school days!
I used to be a bit more obsessive about having all my recipes "match" and would spend time typing them up but I've become a little more relaxed about this now due to time constraints and actually love the higgledy-piggledyness of it!
I vow now to keep my file neat and up-to-date at all times instead of repeatedly printing the same recipe off the computer.
Do you keep recipe files?
love & kisses
Mrs M x
I so need to do this! I hear you on the printing the same recipe over and over again. Either that or I have random bits of paper with scribble on them and no recipe title so I have to guess what they are. I did buy a divided notebook to write the recipes in properly but have so far only managed to do a couple.
ReplyDeleteI have the nameless recipe probems too...
ReplyDeleteI also have some notebooks to handwrite my absolute favourite recipes in. I have some whimsical idea that it will be like a family heirloom my children will fight over one day....likelihood of that?
Love the folder, and am very impressed with your organisational skills.
ReplyDeleteI'll be checking that you keep to your vow!!!!!!!
I love this post! :) I do the same with my recipes! I have a lever-arch file with various recipes in! Although not quite as organised as you, but I feel inspired to give it a bit of a make-over now!
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe file but it's not quite as organised as yours, just roughly divided into sweet and savoury. Might have to get me one of those label makers!
ReplyDeleteHaha, this is brilliant! I keep meaning to do this with all the food magazines I insist on keeping hold of but have NO idea where to start!
ReplyDeleteD'you know, I have every Christmas copy of Olive, Delicious, Good Food Magazine and Vegetarian Good Food from the past SEVEN years under my bed. Something MUST be done. :(
This is awesome. It's really cool when girls do organize their recipes in lever arch files. They look really cute.
ReplyDelete