I only have one file that's remotely organized, and it's a red expandable file folder of recipes I have printed out which are my husband's favorite recipes. I have a several page listing, in alphabetical order, clipped to the front, of all the recipes inside. I do not have the best track record for putting recipes back when I take them out, though.

I'm rather disorganized otherwise, and whether it's shameful to admit or not, I post recipes I don't want to lose to usenet, this and another message board, and/or to a mailing list I've been on for almost a decade, so i can search and find them again when all else fails. Either they're in archives or someone else has saved them.

Same here.

I too await mktye's answer.

Yikes! I am probably not quite as organized as you all suspect...

I've given up on the recipe box with the 3x5 cards. One day when I was printing the recipes onto cards in an itty-bitty font with my printer, I realized that was simply ridiculous.

I try to go electronic as much as possible and I am dreaming of the day when I have a touch-activated computer screen in the door of my refrigerator. If I can find a recipe online (and a suprising number can be), I'll just copy it to my computer. Occasionally, I scan something in (but I still battle with the text-recognition software that came with my new scanner). And if the recipe has really become a favorite, I'll even type it in if need be. I don't use any special recipe software, just a word processing program.

Like JG and others, I also use the three-ring binder and page protector method. I have five super-duper big binders stuffed with clipped and/or printed recipes, sorted by type of dish -- apps., mains, veggies, breads, cakes, pies, cookies, and so on. And I keep a special smaller binder that contains my current favorite recipes that have been printed out and put in page protectors. Of course, that said, I have loose (unprotected!) recipes all over the place... sitting in the tray of my printer, sitting in a 12"-high pile in my bookcase, lying downstairs on the kitchen counters...

And, no, my cookbooks are not alphabetized , but they are sorted by category (and tagged with a zillion little yellow post-its).

I have two methods of keeping track of recipes. One way is for ones I find in my magazines. I'll tear the page out or dog ear it then go the the magazine's web site, find the recipe and do a cut and paste of the recipe into a Word document. And if I'm lucky, there's a picture of the finished product as well.

I have a folder set up on our computer that has sub folders for the recipes (bread, fish, meat, dessert, etc). Then all I have to do when I want a recipe is print it out. And if it gets messed up while I'm cooking I can just toss it out.

My other method is similar but instead of a file on my computer, I have an expandable folder that I'll put recipes in. Every once in a while, I'll go through it and put some on the computer.

As for old family recipes, my mom bought some of these cloth bound diary type books and hand wrote her family recipes in them for each of us kids. Thank goodness there are only three of us or she'd probably still be writing.

If only I could be as organized as Biscuit Girl or mktye...

I'm going through a minimalist phase and getting rid of the clutter which includes magazines and all of those torn out pages. I'm taking two laundry carts worth of recipes and magazines to the dumpster later today.

Although I do go to the web sites, I usually print the recipes and add them to the no-longer expandable folder.

The 1999 issues of Gourmet are going. In general, how long do you keep a magazine before tossing or word processing it? Two months? Three months?


Regarding the subfolders: do you index the recipes on your computer as well?

Very clever! Beats the "photocopy and scotch tape" method currently in use at our house.

I too have boxes filled with clippings, stacks of magazines, etc. They are very gradually being transcribed to Living Cookbook software on the computer...and frequently backed up!

We are currently struggling with the same issue. Our entirely unworkable system is a (totally dogeared) folder of printouts, cutouts, and emailed recipes, 4 years worth of Gourmets (with the name of favorite recipes handwritten on the covers), and a hodgepodge of cookbooks (we had a book-themed wedding shower thrown for us, the result of which is an inordinate number of cookbooks), with red flags on favorite recipes. I reached the breaking point with our Gourmet system (similar to what others have described-- 30 minute frustrating search with vain attempts at remembering what month we first ate a particular dish, etc). Last month, I chron'ed the Gourmets (yes, before, they were in haphazard order, adding to the frustration), so now if we can remember the month, the recipe can be located quickly. This weekend, I intend to start a computer index of all recipies and their source, probably organized by main ingredient (chix/vegetarian/shellfish/fish).

We also write notes on the recipes, as well as jot down the date and any special event it was made for (Rosh Hashana dinner, so-and-so's birthday, etc). So I don't want to switch to a system where we would lose those.

I'm also resistant to tearing out good recipes and throwing away the magazines, because when it comes time for a holiday or seasonal meal, we always look through all past issues of the same month or theme.

I used feel the same way and had 10+ years of Bon Appetit residing on the bottom shelf of a bookcase. But after dragging them back and forth across the country a couple of times, I have taken to tearing and tossing.

Same for Gourmet, Food & Wine and Sunset. The only ones spared are the Cook's Illustrated. Why? No good reason, mainly just because they are thin and don't take up too much room, but once they outgrow their allotted shelf-space...

If a magazine has a searchable on-line database, I have no qualms. All the information is still there without it cluttering up my house. And, for the recipes I tear out, I tend to print out new copies from the website (so the recipe is contained on one page instead of strewn across multiple pages as they tend to be in the magazine) to file in my recipe binders.

At least a couple of months. I just looked at the ~2'-tall pile of cooking magazines and it is as I feared: issues dating as far back as June. Basically, when the pile starts to fall over with regularity when rwtye plops his feet on it while watching television, I know it is time to clean it up.

For online recipes. I've been starting to use the Google Notebook function. You can file things separately in folders, label things, etc. Plus you can choose to share notebooks and access them from anywhere.

I find that recipe programs, in general, are helpful because they can quickly convert servings to ingredient amounts. So if I'm making 4 different recipes for a dinner party, and each recipe is set up for a different number of servings, I can drag them to a "menu", and it will instantly convert all of the ingredient amounts to the right ratio. I think the "Joy of Cooking" software is the one we have installed, but I will have to double-check.

Other useful features: it can make a shopping list (rather than listing 2 eggs in 3 places, it combines to 6 eggs), and if you have cooking and prep times entered properly, you can generate a schedule from the software.

Some sites you can import recipes directly to the leading packages, but it really doesn't take that long to type in a recipe.

Lesson learned: BACK UP YOUR RECIPE FILES.