Anne Halpenny, July, Organize Recipes

The age old problem of collecting recipes but not keeping them organized. In my defense, they are all together... Yeah, nobody believes that wimpy excuse. So let's get down to business.

The Process

I took all the magazines, index cards, grungy cookbooks, printouts, and photocopies of recipes, cut, ripped, trimmed, and pared them down to individual recipes. Threw out duplicates. And Let the sorting commence! These were my categories:

• Cooking Tips & Guides
• Drinks
• Sauces, Dips, & Decorations
• Appetizers
• Breakfast
• Breads
• Sandwiches
• Soups
• Pasta
• Fish
• Meat
• Vegetables (considered separating out potatoes and/or adding salads, thoughts?)
• Salads
• Fruits
• Desserts

It is true that some recipes qualify for more than one category. But being a librarian/cataloger, I considered the purpose of the recipe (showcase a salad or showcase a vegetable?; fruit on the side or dessert finale? Breakfast overrode all other categories). Anyway, all managed to find a home.

(If anyone has recommendations or is willing to post the categories they use for their recipes, I would love to see them! Not in love with my choices.)

The Equipment

I love, LOVE page protectors. Those things are heaven sent. Can't get enough.
Plastic cover binder (going to be near food, none of this fabric stuff)
Dividers (actual dividers, tabs, paper clips, anything so long as it's color coded! another love)
Paper (to attach all those loose recipes to) and/or
Index card box

The Outcome

You know those boxed sets of books you get at Barnes & Noble? I snagged one from work from a boxed set of "The Chronicles of Narnia" to use as my index box. Classy, sturdy, and educational! All recipes with fronts & backs necessary to the food, I put in the index box.

All other recipes were glued to paper, inserted into page protectors, and filed away into my binder. In this way, the binder didn't get too heavy and I don't have to take it apart each time I want to read the back of a recipe.

The Sentiment

3 times, I've made menus for school assignments/art projects. It was kinda fun to use them as decoration.