Let’s Get Cooking: Organizing My Recipe Box
When you think about it, getting prepared for a family meal or planning a week’s worth of grocery shopping for a family is pretty overwhelming. Even if you enjoy the process of deciding on what ingredients you need, going to the store to buy them, putting them in the pantry or the fridge, preparing meals from familiar or new recipes several times a day, setting the table, serving the food and cleaning up… meal preparation is a big task!
So, how do you organize your kitchen, time and resources to make everything come together to plan healthy and nutritious meals for your family? One of the first steps that I suggest organizing is your recipes. Here are a couple simple steps to get your recipes organized:
1. COLLECT RECIPES. Find all your loose recipe cards and magazine pages and collect them into one pile.
2. USE IT OR LOSE IT. While you are sorting through your recipes, pay attention to recipes that are difficult to read or torn. Keep blank recipe cards handy so you can rewrite the recipes you’d like to keep. Also, if you don’t think you are going to use a recipe, or if you haven’t used it yet, toss it. Chances are you can find it again out on the internet if you really want it again.
3. GROUP. Once you have only the recipes that you know you will use, separate them into groups: appetizers, salads, soup, vegetables, main dishes, breads and desserts or family favorites, holiday, appetizers, soups, main dishes, side dishes, veggies, meats and desserts.
4. STORE. There are many great ways to store recipes. A photo album with 4” x 6” sleeves is great for storing recipe cards. A binder with dividers and page protectors works great too. For recipes on full-size sheets, simply 3-hole punch; for small recipe cards or magazine cut-outs, use a page protector to store them.
If you have a computer or laptop handy in your kitchen, here are some suggestions to get you started:
Share how you store recipes in the comment box below – we’d love to learn from you!
photo credit: FreckledPast via photopin cc
Nationally recognized certified organizer, speaker and author, Kathy Jenkins is dedicated to helping her clients simplify their lives by reducing clutter, organizing their homes and offices, and managing their time. She is the President of Come To Order, a professional residential organizing company based in Richmond, Virginia. For more tips, click here to follow Kathy on Facebook.
[…] For more options to store your recipes, consider making a digital book with Create My Cookbook or keeping a Recipe Box. […]