One of her posts for the month is about purging her cookbooks and encouraged us to do the same. Be sure to read her post.
I have many cookbooks. The ones that I use often I keep in my kitchen.
Others that I bought or received as gifts that I dont use are kept in our office with my other books. My goal is to go through them and purge as many as I can. I will never get rid of the majority of my cookbooks though. I like looking at them; they give me inspiration. Purging of things I love and collect is hard for me. It overwhelms me. So I need a game plan to get this done. Unclutterer has a step by step post that sounds like will help me stay focused on the project, and let loose of those that need to go.
All my "loose" recipes are filed in a 4x6 photo box.
Another of my goals this month is to re-do my dividers. This will be no big deal for me and will be fun in the process.
I also love on line e-cookbooks or pdf cookbooks. I've posted another one of mine I want to share with you and I will get it on my sidebar also. Click here to download
Don't be shy, leave me a comment. I wanna know what you think about it and if you try any of the recipes out of it. I'd like to hear and see how you organize your recipes and cookbooks. It helps to know what and if you guys are liking the material that I post here. I know there are several hundred of you.... I receive an average of over 200 visitors a day here. One day a couple of weeks ago I received over 900 visitors! So quit lurking and tell me what's on your mind. :) All comments are welcomed.
Wow, that's quite a collection of cookbooks! I only have a couple, but then again, cooking really isn't one of my favorite things. I look through cookbooks and think that certain recipes look yummy, but I'm just not motivated to actually try them. I'm so happy that my boyfriend is the opposite in this case. He cooks for me a lot and I love how everything tastes. Hoorah!
ReplyDeleteIf you need a handy way to keep loose recipes at your fingertips, try putting them in a photo-album. It keeps everything organized and best of all, if you touch it with sticky fingers, you can just wipe it clean!
ReplyDeleteI keep all of my loose recipes in a binder in sheet protectors. If they are not full size, I just tape them into the sheet protector. This makes it super easy to keep clean and I was still able to put in dividers so I know just where to look! I have tried to get your free books, but it tells me I have to log in. Am I supposed to create an account?
ReplyDeletefrugalsuz That's great to have someone else cook for you.
ReplyDeletechicago thanks for your tip!
central I changed the type of links I had posted. They should now work without signing up for anything. Let me know.
At one time I had more than 300 cookbooks. Now I think I have fewer than 50 actual books, but I still have all of the Taste of Home magazines through 2007, when I finally unsubscribed. I have a few other cooking magazines, about 60 of those little cook booklets that you find at the checkout stands, and hundreds of loose recipes on cards or just clipped from magazines.
ReplyDeleteTo keep the number under control I made rules for myself:
1) I will not buy any cookbook that doesn't have photos for at lest 3/4 of the recipes.
2) I will not buy cookbooks brand new.
3) I will not buy cookbooks unless I know I will try at least half the recipes.
To make recipes easy to located, I've numbered all the cookbooks, cookbooklets and magazines on the outside (I printed out numbers and taped them on so they are neater looking). That way when I plan menus, I can just refer to the book number and the page number instead of having to write out the title or try to remember some crazy abbreviation I came up with.
I keep two recipe card files, one for those I've tried and liked, one for those I haven't tried yet.
I try to sort through clippings at least once every two months.
I also find that I get more and more of my recipes from blogs and other online sources. I use Google reader and "star" any recipe I like, then just refer back to my starred list.
I'm seriously considering getting rid of more cookbooks soon. I love them, but I just have too many!
I have cut cookbooks up - by cutting out the recipe we use all the time and putting them in a photo album. A couple of times a year you can buy photo albums really cheaply at CVS. I am waiting for a great deal on one right now so recipes that I have tried that I like are in a recipe box until I get one. I also use online software.
ReplyDeleteannie WoooWhooo! You are so organized on those cookbooks! Noone has anything up on you girl.
ReplyDeletePrecious I've read a lot of people have cut some of their cookbooks up and put them in photo albums. When I tried the photo album method (I used the ones where you lift the clear film and stuck the recipe to the sticky page and I tried the ones where each recipe is slipped into a clear 4x6 sleeve) I found that once you have all the recipes in the books, it's hard to add to them and keep them organized. Maybe I didnt use the right type of photo album?
How about you and the others that use the photo album method do a post with pics of them. Maybe I would understand better then.