Recently, my mum and I learned the hard way what happens when you don't keep your recipes organised. I wanted her recipe for gypsy creams (I'm still working on GF-ing the recipe) and I was sure it was in one of her hand-written books. We spent 40 minutes on the phone, me desperately describing the book I thought it was in, mum pulling all her cookbooks out of the cupboard and rifling through them. We found the recipe eventually, but it was a reminder for both of us that it was time to organise all those scraps of paper and cut-out recipes somehow. I love this pink leather-bound file from Oh So Cherished. This A5 binder is really quite special, with pages of cream Italian paper to write your recipes on and plastic wallets to stuff with all the ones you're still trying out. It's £34.99, but it's handmade and would last forever. Go on, treat yourself!
If you're on more of a budget, Paperchase has a few recipe journals for £10 for you to chose from. All four of these journals are wipe-clean (essential when I'm cooking, how do you keep ingredients in the bowl?) with loads of useful sections for notes and recipes. They came with recipe card holders and a zip wallet, too, so you'll never lose that gypsy creams recipe again.
For a really pretty addition to your kitchen, you can always count on the V&A. This William Morris recipe binder is filled with gorgeous prints as well as handy places to keep your recipes. If you find yourself unable to access our handy cooking conversion charts, then you'll find them in this binder. It's £12.15 from Amazon.
How do you keep your recipes organised?
I have a question about these. Does anyone use them? They seem admirable, and I like the idea, but I've never *managed* it. Do you re-write out by hand the recipes? Type them? Glue to a bit of paper? What do you do when you've got a mag with two sided recipes? How does all this work in actual practice?
ReplyDeleteSorry if this comes over as a bit mental, I would love for this to be a thing in my life but I have got stuck at all the questions and never done it!
Yeah, glue 'em in, print them out (all of our recipes have a print friendly button at the bottom so you can print them without all of the website faff). And yeah, write some in if you've got old family favourites. Shove the whole magazine page in if you want double-sided - I still have a recipe from Dan Lepard floating around the flat that I've been meaning to try for months. I should probably get a recipe organiser to put it in.
DeleteHave you seen Kikki.K's recipe binders? They're AMAZING, and are the only ones I've found which are an inch or so wider than a normal lever arch, meaning that you can put your recipes in plastic folder pockets and still see the section tabs. (I know, I know, talk about easily pleased, but that makes a difference to my life.)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, have a look at the Kikki.K site at your peril, your paycheque will evaporate before your very eyes!
I have one of the Moleskine recipe books, which I like - it has three ribbon bookmarks, which is quite useful
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of one of these. But I know I'll never use it. I have a book written with my family's recipes but any others are on random bits of paper rammed into one of my various cookbooks. I also have a set of recipe cards that were a gift and are very pretty but they remain unused!
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