Have you ever found a good recipe, amongst all of your books, magazines and clippings, and the next time you want to cook it, you can't remember where you placed it? It happens to me quite often. So I thought I would share with you a few things that have helped me get organized and keep those favorite recipes close at hand. It also makes it easy to share your favorite recipes with family and friends.
Create a Word Document
Start a document in Word, add columns to it (2) essentially dividing the page in half. Then type your recipes. I created seperate documents, dividing them by meats, breakfast items, desserts, breads and so forth. You can choose to divide it up however will work best for you. I printed the pages out, numbered them so I don't get recipes mixed up that continue over to another page, and put them in a plastic page protector and keep them in my cupboard with canned goods. It also comes in handy to have them on the computer if a friend or family member would like the recipe.
Make a List Using a Spreadsheet
I used to receive a recipe magazine, but wasn't really putting them to good use, because I stuck them in a magazine holder and stored them in the cupboard. So over a few weeks, I went through them and wrote down the issue date, the recipe name and the page number of recipes that I found interesting.
Then I created an Excel sheet with heading titles of columns - Category, Name, Issue and Page Number. Under category, you can list by what meal or category it falls under - breakfast, breads, cookies, desserts and so forth. Then the recipe name, issue date and page number. Excel allows you to sort by columns, so you can sort your list alphabetically by recipe name, by issue date, by category and so forth. The options are endless. If you're not sure how to do this within Excel, feel free to contact me through the contacet page, and I will do my best to coach you. It's easy once you've figured it out.
You can then print out a master list and keep it with your source documents, so all you have to do is grab the list and locate the recipe you're looking for along with the issue date and page number.
Create a Blog
I know, I didn't know what a blog was either, until I decided to look into it. There are many, many sites which enable you to create a blog. It's basically like you're own little website, where you can set up how you want it to look, make a few basic choices, and then you can write whatever your little heart desires. No one may see it but you, and any friends or family members you direct to it, but I use it as my space to put things for myself to easily reference or find. This also makes it easy to share recipes with people, because it easily accessible by anyone. My recipe blog address is www.recipeshared4you.blogspot.com. I just had to set up a Google gmail address in order to use Google's Blogger website.
