In this Wonderful Life

Saving Recipes

Two things first –
Our little friend, Lauren, has not been doing well since her heart surgery yesterday. She is a little over three years old and such a fighter. This is her third heart surgery and yesterday was a very rocky road. She is stable, but not out of the woods. Her Caring Bridge page is here. I’ve gotten updates from her mom posting on Facebook, but she is doing some on CB, too.

I’ve also had several people contact me about a little girl, Macy Tolbert. She is believed to have passed away from meningitis. She was a triplet. So sad.

I have lots of cookbooks. My mom has lots and lots more.

I’m still really bummed all my online bookmarks got deleted this past spring when I tried to update Firefox 🙁 I feel like I lost a lot of really good recipes off websites. 

Magazines are also a great place for good recipes. However, it’s not all too logical to save every magazine with a good recipe. Prior to two years ago, I was tearing recipes out of magazines and keeping them like Martha, in page protectors, in a binder like so…

I have lots and lots. Not to mention, my mom tears out, too.

For he past two years, I’ve been quite busy and well, my mind is racing too constantly to sit down and go through and save things from magazines. So, instead, they’ve been piling up. Now, of course it is time to get rid of them. I had a hard time with Brent just loading them up and taking them to the recycle place. I wanted to go through them. I knew I wanted want things out of them. Plus, they cost money. I don’t buy any at the store anymore. Mine are all through subscription, and most my mom have signed me up for. Still, I wanted to go through and not to waste the money.

I’ve been trying to go through several a day. I rip out some and some I don’t. It’s not easy when you are lying in bed with two fans and a purifier blowing. Pages go all over the place. So, when I’m not saving some, I’m taking pictures of others…

I mean, what did we do before cameras on our phones? These pictures I took were in the evening and the only light I had on was my bedside lamp. Some aren’t perfect, but I can still read.

I think I may save a stash of photo recipes on my computer or I may even type some out.

I also really like storing them on my food blog 🙂

What made me think to do this? Well, when I was going to the store with certain recipes,  if I found them online, I would often email myself the link. Then, at the store, I could pull it right up. If I was afraid I wouldn’t get a good signal, I would just take a screen shop and have the recipe right there as a picture. I would often even take a picture of a recipe in the cookbook I was looking in and that’s how I would take the recipe to the store with me to get the ingredients.

So while this may not be the most logical plan for saving recipes, it’s buying me some time on making sure they are all perfectly organized and saved/stored the way I’d like. I’ve got a few other things on my mind 🙂

How do you save/store your recipes??

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Comments

  1. I pull/cut/tear the recipe I think I'll use out and then transfer it into a notebook of recipes I keep 🙂

    I got rid of at least 50 magazines earlier this year bc I was keeping them for recipes and didnt have the space anymore 🙂

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  2. So funny, I have a stack of about 40-50 magazines I have been working through the last few weeks. I try and go through a couple each night. Some cooking, some fashion, some finance…

    For recipe organization I have a couple of different ways I do it. I organize all the magazine tear-outs, recipes passed on from others and internet print outs or copies from books in categorized binders. All of the recipes are stored in plastic holders so that I don't have to worry about the recipe getting dirty when I'm cooking.

    Cooking blogs load into a specific folder in my google reader, anytime I see a recipe there or elsewhere on the internet that looks good, I "pin" it to save for later. Then when I'm meal planning, I do a combination browse though my food board and my binders.

    I used to print tons of recipes out online but now I stick to pinning them and then each time I make a recipe that I pinned online, I print it out and tuck it into my meal planning binder. Once that month is done, it gets filed away in the appropriate binder.

    I feel like it sounds overly complicated, but its actually felt wonderfully simplified!

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  4. Oh, I'm like you, such a magazine and cookbook addict! I have a few processes:

    -When I go through my magazines upon receipt, I fold up everything I think I might want. At the end of the month, I look through all of my flags in all of my mags 🙂 (dorky) and tear out the ones that still interest me. Some that sound good initially loose their luster after you've seen so many other recipes.

    -I keep BIG, massive, huge binders in my kitchen that are really organized, I stick my tear-outs in there. I also print out recipes from online and they go in the binder, too. If something wasn't great, it gets pulled out and thrown away.

    -Online, I have recipes emailed to me that I save into folders, and I also organize my feed reader down to food category and save blog posts of recipes that look good. I love being able to type in there "peaches" and everything I've bookmarked comes up with peaches. It's great when you have extra of something and need to figure out how to use it up.

    I wish EVERY recipe I had was organized in one central online page so I could search my whole arsenal. But, I'm not about to type all of the ones that aren't already!

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  7. i have a bunch saved on firefox, but i am slowly moving them all to pinterest. i like it because it's a visual bookmark and it's on a server, not a computer program that might malfunction and lose them all.

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  8. I have two recipe binders. As I find recipes I like, I cut them from magazines or print them off websites, and put them into one binder of recipes we want to try. Once we try it and decide to keep it, I move it to our "tried and true" recipe binder.

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  9. You should try Pinterest. You can find fun recipes on there, and you can store the ones you find online as well. It is also a really fun and addicting website 🙂

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  10. You should check out evernote! It's an app on the iTunes store but you can also download it for any type of computer. It syncs wirelessly from your computer to your phone as well. You can even have a plug-in for your browser that automatically saves it to evernote. It can have picture notes and everything. I love love love it!

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  11. I started a Food Network recipe book on their site (easy to save the recipes I see on shows and I love Tyler Florence recipes.)

    More recently, I started pinning food on Pinterest. I have 2 "boards" – a holiday/festive food one and a regular one. I am sure eventually I will branch out into just a dessert board.

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  18. I've started using Pinterest! I absolutely love it and have a board for Appetizers, Main Course, Sides and Desserts. It's a great place to keep recipes!!

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  20. I use my camera on my phone for things like that, too! Especially around Christmas, I use it to snap photos of gift ideas 🙂

    Thanks for the inspiration to go through my pile of magazines, too. I need to commit to going through a few each night after my kids are in bed.

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  21. I usually save my recipes in 1 of 3 ways: I tear out the pages from magazines and put them in labeled file folders, or I emailed the recipe to myself and save it in my "recipe" folder, or (my newest way) I save them on Pinterest. I've found Pinterest is my favorite way of doing it. In case I'm somewhere and forgot a recipe I can quickly look it up!

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  23. I remember you posting a photo of all your magazines in a closet at some point and at the moment, I have the exact same thing happening. Like you I need to figure out a better way to save my paper recipes….maybe I'll try the page protector/binder thing. Right now they are all in a file folder and never get looked at because they aren't organized!

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  25. I will keep the above families in my prayers!

    If you have it in your heart, would you PLEASE consider adding Tripp to your website prayer list? I have been following his Mom, Courtney's blog since he was a baby. He has EB and is not doing well AT ALL. It is absolutely horrible and heart-wrenching. http://randycourtneytripproth.blogspot.com/

    I love how you organize your recipes! I think I am going to put a binder together myself!

    Thanks,
    Kristi- Castle Rock

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  29. I have a recipe binder like yours….I decorated it and put some cooking quotes on it and "jazzed it up". On the inside i have it divided into sections like To Try for things that are new to us and then Aps, Beef, Chicken, Etc. It first goes into the To Try area and then if we like it goes to its permanent home section and if we hate it I throw out the recipe. I also take pics of recipes if it is from someone elses cookbooks or magazines.

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  30. That's such a great idea! I've never thought about taking a picture of a recipe and pulling it up at the store when shopping for ingredients. So smart. I will definitely try that soon!

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  31. Megan
    I've been following your blog ever since your pregnancy with Cohen. I did send a note to you when Cohen went to heavrn and when you announced your twin pregnancy. I am so happy for you.
    Just wanted to let you know that I think about you often and am always checking your blog to make sure you are safe at home with your babies still in your tummy.
    I want them to stay there as long as they can so their lungs can develop. Keep going what your doing which I know isn't easy. I'm a Nonna with precious grand children and this has been the best! We're having another girl in November and are very excited about Sullivan's arrival. Plus I get to take care of her which is exhausting but I love every single minute of it. Best wished to you and PLEASE keep us posted.
    Thanks
    Linda Miller
    Charlotte NC

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  33. Omgosh I do the same thing and have a binder too! I keep one just for breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas and the other binder is full of any thing dessert! I love to pull, tear and place them in my binders. But let me warn you now, look through those magazines before the babies get here because my daughter is 2 and I never have time to even sit down and look through my magazines. Congrats on the twins!!!

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