Recipe Binder

I pride myself on being organized. Seriously, ask my family or friends. They actually make fun of me, but I'm a good sport and play along. They have gone so far as to move things on me to see if I would notice. Of course, I would notice and put everything back in it's proper place.


Anyway, back to my story. I lacked organizational skills when it came to keeping my recipes. Recipes that I find in magazines, get from family or friends and recipes I print from the Internet. I am embarrassed to say, they get thrown in one of my many cookbooks. They aren't even categorized by groups like entrees, desserts, breads, appetizers, etc. They are just randomly thrown in whatever cookbook that isn't already filled with papers. It worked for me, but it was a mess and took me forever to find a recipe.


I did have this bright idea (I get them occasionally) of scanning all my recipes onto my computer. I made a file on my computer desktop called "Recipe Box" and put in categories so each recipe could be filed properly. So, one weekend I got started. Everything was going great. I was scanning and throwing away the paper copy. Following weekend, I continued. It was great. I had about 30-40 more recipes to scan and our scanner started giving me problems. If I have to start and stop, I had the time and patience. After three hours of fighting with the scanner, I called it quits. I will try again another day. Well, needless to say, I tried everyday for a good couple of weeks. Every time I thought something was scanning in, I got the awful beeping noise "ERROR, ERROR, ERROR". So much for finishing. I gave up, so what if I had a few papers in my cookbooks, it would be better than before. I had gotten almost all of my recipes scanned in my "Recipe Box" folder. Whenever I needed a recipe, I could just go to the computer, pull it up and start cooking. I was so happy, I was no longer "Recipe File Challenged".


I boasted about how wonderful it was. If someone wanted one of my recipes, I would say "no problem, I have all my recipes on my computer, it will take only seconds for me to Email it to you". Silly me. Why did I think I was so smart. I knew something would go wrong and it did. Evidently, my scanning skills needed some work. When scanning I didn't actually notice that I was missing some of the recipe. Now, I'm in panic mode....remember, I went paperless and threw out all the hard copies of my recipes. I'm still trying to get some of my missing recipes back, but in the meantime came up with another solution to keeping recipes. I went out and bought a couple of 3-ring binders, clear protector sheets and binder tabs to categorize recipes. It doesn't cost much and sometimes you can find some really pretty binders to match you kitchen colors. It was actually fun.



I laid everything out on the living room floor one Sunday, turned on the TV (Lifetime Channel had some great movies on that day) and put the binders together. It's a good chance to actually sort out duplicate recipes or throw out recipes that you don't want. So, if you are "Recipe File Challenged" like me, try this. Think of it this way. On a cold Sunday, you can stay in your PJ's, turn on the TV, throw all your stuff on the living room floor and put your Recipe Binders together. You can have a productive, yet relaxing Sunday. Oh, one more thing. You have to reward yourself by getting "Take Out" rather than cook. After all, you've been busy all day, you need someone to cook for you today. By the way, the Recipe Binders makes a great gift too, especially as a shower gift or as a gift for a new home. Start someone off with a pretty binder and inserts, add a couple of your favorite recipes and trust me, they will love it. Maybe they'll even invite you to dinner some night..