Recipe Storage

pixiegirl, Dec 14, 1:51am
Some great ideas here to try. Many thanks

amasser, Dec 14, 3:15am
Perhaps copy the index of your favourite cookery book, such as Edmond's.

slimgym, Dec 14, 6:36pm
write recipes once I have tried them, on cards.
did for a while put them on the computer, but every time I wanted to make something had to print it off, so to me that was a waste of time

village.green, Dec 15, 9:45pm
I wondered if anyone has any advice re my dilemma with my hundreds of recipes that have been jammed into folders in no particular order. Husband despairs at the mess and even bought me some posh folders with A4 plastic leaves in to try and tidy it all up. However I have no idea where to start. e.g do I put cakes under 'cakes' or do I do sub headings like GF cakes, choc cakes etc. Do I put meat dishes under main courses or meat or sub head pork/beef/lamb etc. I often reprint out recipes I know I have found on internet because I can't be bothered looking for where I might have put them which is daft. Any advice gratefully received. I love cooking and it's getting me a bit down when I think about the enormity of it! (whereas in actual fact I am sure I could sort it all out in a couple of hours maybe with help from my OCD teen son). I also need to chuck out unused recipes that just 'might' come in handy one day. Luckily I just found my very old tried and loved recipe for Kouribiedes (Greek Xmas shortbread) that has been scribbled all over but probably needs to be typed out again and put under 'Greek food' or "Christmas recipes'?

hesian, Dec 15, 10:17pm
I have mine in folders like this. One for gf savoury, breads one end. Sweet the other end. Non Gf folder for baking and one non gf general. I tore pages of favourites out of old recipe books too to declutter my cook books.

Mine is still a bit hunt and find and not super well organised but thinking of refining a little. You may need to be ruthless! Cull.

I started with gluten and non gluten free. Then breads and savoury baking. I left blank pages for type adding, eg another veggie recipe or whatever.

My very first loose recipe book was one of those heavy old fashioned photo albums from op shop.

valentino, Dec 15, 11:36pm
I have two main categories, one is tried and favoured, the other is too try.

Each category is in sections as basic cakes cookies meals Pastas salads Orientals etc then under each have the sub titles like Sugar-free, GF, Normal, and so on.
All in Alphabetical order for easy to locate plus on top of each - my score out of 10 - tells me instantly how good it is or was, may have a wee personal note next to it.

Yep, may spread over a few folders and the folders are coloured coded too.

Cheers

davidt4, Dec 15, 11:53pm
I used to keep my recipes written out on small index cards, filed in categories such as Cakes, Soups, Veges etc. Several years ago I took a deep breath and began typing them out as documents in my computer, and used that as an opportunity to cull heavily. I keep them on my hard disk in folders in broad categories such as "Sweet" "Indian" etc, and use the search facility to look things up. I can search for ingredients as well as names that way.

If I run across something on a web page that I want to keep I copy and paste it into a document, tidy up the font and formatting, and add a note of where I found it.

pure.blonde, Dec 16, 1:44am
I purchased a large plastic suspension file bin with a clip on lid - and it has worked well for me. I started off with general file names like Meat, Baking, etc but the more I filled the files the more I refined the names that are now Seafood, Chicken, Lamb, Beef, Pork, etc and Cakes, Slices, Biscuits, Muffins, etc - and so it goes on - but for me it works well. It's a vast improvement on my old system of stuff-as-many-as-possible-into-
-an-old-exercise-book which then overflowed into the cupboard and drawers below!

My system is for all the Recipes that I have kept to try one day - if I like them and will definitely make them again they are then put into a large blank Recipe Folder as keepers. My plan was to try one or two new recipes a week but I get busy and keep making my favourites!

wheelz, Dec 16, 10:00am
I use two 40 leaf clear files, one for sweet , one for savoury and meal dishes.
Recipes are added as I find them, and written under the appropriate index, eg, chicken, vege , cakes, desserts, miscellaneous etc.
They are my most used recipe books, being in plastic sleeves makes for easy clean up after a messy cook.

fifie, Dec 16, 10:30am
I use recipe ship. Free download, comes with heaps recipes just delete them all and make my own sections like deserts, beef, chicken, asian, cakes,slices, etc Can add and delete as you want. Have copied a lot into it from my files books id made over the years and biffed all of them. Every now and then i back up to a disk in case puter crashes. Im about to see if i can put it on a tablet, so i can just take it to the bench for cooking, as i normally sit lappy on table and use it that way.

roseann48, Nov 21, 3:40pm
I took all recipes that I hadn't tried & liked & put in a large container & stored them out of sight in the shed. Instant relief. After 6 months I looked through them again & found I no longer needed them & was happy to chuck them. I have a file box where I keep my favs under various headings - meat- cakes- biscuits-salads etc