Organize Your Recipes

Do you have some favorite recipes that you know you want to use over and over? Do you know where they are? Most people find a great recipe and have every intention of using it again. The problem is they have no way to organize them to be manageable and convenient. Setting up a file system of favorite recipes is not as difficult as many believe. The trick is finding the system that works for your lifestyle.

A card file is a popular choice for many. There are adorable tins or boxes that serve as excellent holders of favorite recipes. The box is usually stored on a shelf or even right on the counter. This is a convenient choice is you love the look of handwritten recipes on the 3x5 cards. The box is easily portable and recipes can be organized into many various categories. But this type of file system has it's disadvantages too. The box or tin may fall open and recipes can be scattered everywhere, thus ruining your hard work. Then there are the messes.

If you are a messy cook that ends up with spills everywhere, then having your recipe just lying out unprotected is not the best choice. A card file with recipes may seem like a good idea, but if you card gets destroyed then you have wasted your time. A suggestion for messy cooks, or cooks that prefer to protect their recipes from being scattered around the kitchen have a few options. There are many page protectors out on the market designed to hold various size items. There are sizes that hold 2 (or 4 back to back) pages that hold common recipe card sizes. These are perfect to hold the recipe cards while allowing some protection from spills. They are simply placed into your favorite 3 ring binder for easy portability and spill protection. To organize this type of binder, simply buy index dividers and place the category names along the tabs. A great benefit of this holder is that recipes can be added as needed by just adding a new page protector.

Another option for those that like the binder and page protector solution is to type your recipes onto 8 1/2"x11" paper and place them into regular page protectors, using the index dividers to categorize. The page protectors are cheaper than the other style and recipes can be easily taken out or added. Typing them up brings us to our next organization solution.

If you are a computer person and spend most of your time on the computer, adding your recipes to a computer file may be the best solution for you. By having them onto the computer, you can search your own files for specific recipes or category (based on how you input them) and simply print them or leave them up on the screen while you cook. This saves having to store a box or binder, and recipes can be added, changed, or deleted as necessary. If you find recipes online, they can easily be copied and pasted into your file saving loads of work.

For the crafty person, a scrapbook recipe file may be the perfect solution. You can create a scrapbook filled with your recipes and your flair. You are free to design the pages anyway you please and use protectors to keep them clean. This is perfect for the craft-er that truly enjoys seeing their recipes displayed beautifully. This is also a great way to preserve pictures of your loved ones eating the delicious meals. A scrapbook recipe file makes a great gift as well.

Cooking can be very rewarding. Having to search for your recipe or losing it can be very frustrating and annoying. Take the time to determine what style of filing system will work for your lifestyle and the ease of use will be worth the time. No more lost recipes means happier cooks and happy eaters.