Organization

By Rachel // May 6, 2011 // 10 comments // Share

How do you store your recipes? Do you like them in a box by category? Are they printed out and stored in binders? Or maybe even stored completely on your computer in one way or another? I’m a little bit of all of the above. It can be both frustrating and fun.

I recently decided my bookmarked recipes online needed to be weeded through. I should have kept count of how many I had and how many I now have, but I didn’t. I did drastically cut down. It was getting out of hand. The annoying part about my online storage… really it’s just a folder in my ‘favorites’ but to weed through that means clicking on every link to see if I really want to keep it or not. Click, delete, click, delete. Oy vey … my fingers seriously hurt after all of that. I had too much.

Cookbooks are easy to sort – the ones I rarely use get stuck in the back and the ones I love stay out front. For the purpose of this, most are out front but I bet you can see a trend… cupcakes, cookies, baking. Yeah. Clearly I need some more baking books right? I’d actually like to find some amazing soup and crock books. Not just any old book. Seriously amazing. Every recipe should be competing for first place kind of good and amazing. Oh and pictures are a must. I loathe cookbooks without pretty full color pictures of what I’m making. The more the merrier.

Then there’s the box. You see it up there. It doesn’t get used much these days but that’s where the tiny recipes found in boxes go and recipes handed down over the years that are already on neat little cards. It’s cute. I like it.

Here’s the problem. My binder. The purple one was running out of room. It needed a partner to share in the fun. I don’t often print recipes but when I do, if I love it, it’s needs a place to go. Then there are the recipes I pull from magazines (so those don’t create more clutter) and even the ones I write by hand. I’d been meaning to organize the binder a bit more… downsize on what I have and add another binder for future space. It was all a must. Finally I got around to it. It took me a while. I’m not kidding. I spent an afternoon sorting the recipes into – keep and toss piles. Deciding what recipes would go where. They were already mostly organized but if I had more room then why not spread em out even more, right?

Here was my process and supplies: old binder packed full with dividers and recipes – check, new binder with new dividers and clear sleeves for recipes that can’t be hole punched – check. I’d put all recipes into sleeves but that’d get pricey so I stick to using them for the ones that the recipe is too close to the side of the page or is a two pager deal. Oh and don’t forget the three hole punch.

I separated the recipes into various piles and tossed a bunch as I went. I could have broken my piles up even more but I didn’t have room so I stuck to the ten piles that would fit on my table. From there every non-dessert recipe was divided up into the black folder into various categories. And all of the desserts went into the purple binder. Yes, I have that many more of that variety as you could easily guess from the cookbooks I own. It’s proof. Sugar and butter are wonderful things. And bacon… just not with my desserts please. Mmm bacon.

All sorted! Yay. Trash pile and recipe filled binders.

Share this: