Nora Mair, March, Recipes and Spices

Who's in charge here?  The leader of the whole project(s)connect doesn't schedule her post early?  And I thought I had chosen an "easy" pre baby goal that could be done in an afternoon.  It took longer than I thought but I'm confident it will prove time saving over the next year! 

I apologize that this post is late. I just ran out of time before I chose to get this baby here!   And I really thought I'd get to it in the hospital after the birth but I was doing a Methergine series that had me crawling the walls! 


Let's start with my wedding recipe book that was a bit useless.

It was filled with recipes like taco bake, taco soup and two copies of muddy buddies.  First, taco bake is gross, second, who needs a recipe for taco soup (clearly I did in 1998)?  Third, The recipe for muddy buddies is on the side of the box of Chex or easily Googled.  Basically I saved the 10-20 recipes (mostly desserts) and threw out the rest.  I also threw out a lot of this:  Amy, do you remember this class?  Thanksgiving Point Greek cooking class in 1999!  I still make the feta dip with cucumbers, but the directions on how to make baklava went right into the garbage.  I have youtube now right? 

 So many useless printables.  Pitched!






When we moved I threw a couple of cookbooks out by ripping out the one recipe I used and chucked the rest of the book.  I couldn't get rid of the Allen Family cookbook until I took this goal seriously.  All the recipes are in the second printing but I'll admit it was hard to say goodbye to the original book.  Do you see the date it was compiled?  1998--the year I got married and started cooking!  So many tried and trues, that I still have, just in a different spot, in a different book! 

It really was ugly, the sorting.. I'm somewhat sentimental so a recipe someone gave me, I'd deliberate if I was keeping it just because it connected me to that person, even if I never planned to make it.  ie: Jalapeno Jelly from Mark Grotopas.  In the first married ward I ate it at a gathering and begged Mark for the info.  It got pitched.  But thanks Mark, for writing it done and giving it to me.  If I ever make jalapeno jelly, I'll compare a few recipes on line, for ingredients, time, ratings, etc.  I love the internet! 

 I decided I needed two binders, one for just desserts and one for everything else.  Categories:  Pasta & Sauce, Soup, Breads, Salads, Beef & Pork, Breakfast, Dips & Appetizers, Chicken, Vegetarian.

I kept 7 brownie recipes.  They are: Knock You Naked Brownies, Mom's ultimate brownies, Best Cocoa Brownies, Weight Watchers Black Bean Brownies, Peanut Butter Brownies, Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies, Waffle Brownies,

 So basically my new system is this.  If I make a recipe and I think I'll make it again, it gets a sleeve and placed in the category it belongs.    Each divider in my binder has a pocket.  A few recipes are awaiting in the pocket for the chance that I might make it.  I'm not being picky about fonts conforming.  Just like spices, I find recipes according to where they are on the page or the color of the paper they were written on or with.  (white paper+ black sharpie = fluffy pancake from all-recipes.com, New Years 2014:) 

So tell me what to do with these:  Recipe cards I salvaged when cleaning out my mom's kitchen last year when she moved.  She's got them all typed up and has no need for these "Sunday dinner" recipe cards that were taped inside the cupboards, but I remember these meals.  It's when she cooked!  They're in her hand writing.  

The spices were much more fun to organize!  I tried to organize them all more than a year ago.  I thought that every spice needed to be in the same container.  Mistake.  I had a hard time finding Montreal chicken seasoning because I had taken it out of Shillings bottle and put it into a glass dollar tree container.  Ginger was always in a square tin box and thankfully I left the ginger well alone.

So the ultimate goal with this one was that the more used spices be easy to access and the not so common ones be labeled and findable!  I kept various sizes of spice jars according the amount of spice and how often it was used.  All of these spices I didn't have very much of, and I rarely used them so they were transferred into small makeup jars and labeled.  But I won't recommend them because they claimed they held an ounce but they are really small. 

 

 This cool little slider can hold 40 but for me it holds 25.  (15 small, 10 large bottles)  In the picture below I put the slider on the bottom of the shelf but because of the lip of the shelf, it didn't pull out very smooth.  I need to hang it like the amazon picture, but I mistakenly threw away the screws that it came with, but believe me I have more screws.

 In the pantry went the spice turntable for cake decorating supplies and homemade mixes.  

 Along the back of the stove I have the 12 most used-but-that-don't-need-a-plastic-sprinkle-thing spices.  Curry, Oregano, Basil, Rosemary, Garlic powdered, Sage, Fennel, Onion powdered, Red Pepper Flakes, Cayenne, Cumin, Chili Powdered.  I still haven't found a shelf for these but displayed along the back of the stove would look really cool.  Jars found here.  Okay I don't know how Rosemary made the line up, I use it rarely but it looks cool.   

Here are some before and during pictures.  Goodby wedding glass jars with the crumbling plastic lids. 

  Next month you'll hear all about baby Mckay the new born and also what I'm having my big kids do to support.