How Do You Keep Track Of Your Recipes?

[Scott Johnston]

Over my lifetime I have collected a archive of recipes, books, software, and cards. While no one system works for everyone, mine is in such a mess that I can no longer function. In this digital age, how do you keep track of the recipes you enjoy? How do you pass them on to family and friends? Do you type them in a word processor, use a software program (which one), keep a online archive? Store them on a shelf (with the 3 boxes of 3x5 cards I inherited from my grandmother. What aout clipped recipes (I have piles and folders full of these!) Then we get on to books and videos and such.

[Jacques Gastreaux]

I use a 3-ring binder with plastic sheet protectors for the things I print off the web or cut from a newspaper or magazine.

[JPW]

Right now I have a big old pile of crap with all the best intentions to...

But really, I'm just waiting on mktye's response.

[Mrs. B]

I print them out or tear them out and stuff them in a legal sized redweld expandable file folder and then spend 45 minutes looking for the recipe when I'm ready to make it and am always distracted by other recipes I stuffed in the file and haven't made and then decide to completely change the menu and make something else. Then I rearrange the file to put all the recipes I want to try soon at the front of the folder (though I never return to make good on that idea) and then it's too late to go to the store to pick up the ingredients for the new menu and I order carryout. I don't reccomend this method.

[youngfood]

I use a 3-ring binder with plastic sheet protectors for the things I print off the web or cut from a newspaper or magazine.

Me too. You can buy ones designed for this purpose, or build your own for much less.

[bilrus]

I use a 3-ring binder with plastic sheet protectors for the things I print off the web or cut from a newspaper or magazine.

I do the same thing.

One cool (at least I think so) idea I picked up along the way (a Real Simple Magazine in a dentist's office I think) was to affix one of the removable Post-It Brand adhesive hooks to a cabinet door over my work space and hang the recipes on a pants hanger.

[Barbara]

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QUOTE(Mrs. B @ Oct 19 2006, 02:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I print them out or tear them out and stuff them in a legal sized redweld expandable file folder and then spend 45 minutes looking for the recipe when I'm ready to make it and am always distracted by other recipes I stuffed in the file and haven't made and then decide to completely change the menu and make something else. Then I rearrange the file to put all the recipes I want to try soon at the front of the folder (though I never return to make good on that idea) and then it's too late to go to the store to pick up the ingredients for the new menu and I order carryout. I don't reccomend this method.

But, but, but . . . THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I DO!

[Pat]

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.

[Heather]

Right now I have a big old pile of crap with all the best intentions to...

Same here.

I too await mktye's answer.

[mktye]

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).

[Biscuit Girl]

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.

[legant]

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?

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.

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

[Heather]

One cool (at least I think so) idea I picked up along the way (a Real Simple Magazine in a dentist's office I think) was to affix one of the removable Post-It Brand adhesive hooks to a cabinet door over my work space and hang the recipes on a pants hanger.

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

[MsDiPesto]

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!

[DC in DC]

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.

[mktye]

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.

In general, how long do you keep a magazine before tossing or word processing it? Two months? Three months?

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.

[synaesthesia]

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.

[DanielK]

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.

[jpschust]

Is there a recipe website that will allow you to download not only their recipes but also to add your own and then from those it will make a shopping list for you?

[Aphioni]

Is there a recipe website that will allow you to download not only their recipes but also to add your own and then from those it will make a shopping list for you?

yes! www.allrecipes.com

it is wonderful- i typed in the words "chicken quick" and got the most amazing parmesan crusted chicken recipe ever- though i DID cut the butter it called for in half. lots of helpful reviews and suggestions to improve recipes as well. hope you like it!

[jpschust]

yes! www.allrecipes.com

it is wonderful- i typed in the words "chicken quick" and got the most amazing parmesan crusted chicken recipe ever- though i DID cut the butter it called for in half. lots of helpful reviews and suggestions to improve recipes as well. hope you like it!

I use allrecipes, but I can't figure out how to take from my private recipe box to add to a shopping list automatically.

[Aphioni]

I use allrecipes, but I can't figure out how to take from my private recipe box to add to a shopping list automatically.

in your recipe box, check the recipes you want, then at the bottom click on COPY checked items to "My Shopping List", hit go. click the Shopping list tab, then view and print. it's not automatic, but it works...

[LauraB]

I just discovered this new website and thought some of you might be interested as well. It's called Eat Your Books and it's essentially a search engine through the contents of cookbooks. Just as you can go to Epicurious or any number of other online resources and search for a recipe, this site allows you to search for a recipe within the cookbooks you actually own.

This is a quite new site and it says that, as of today, they have 15,934 cookbooks in their Library. Of those, they've entered 700 books into their searchable index.

I just spent the entire afternoon entering the names of all of my cookbooks into 'my bookshelf' on their website. As it turns out, only 50% of my cookbooks are in their 700 book searchable index. I haven't yet tried searching for a recipe, so I can't comment on how well that function works.

They offer a 30-day free trial. After that, it's $25 per year, $50 for a lifetime membership.

I think this is a great idea. If something like this had existed in 1996 I might not have abandoned all of my cookbooks in favor of Epicurious. Time will tell if it lives up to its promise.

http://www.eatyourbooks.com/pages/Overview.aspx

[DanielK]

It is important to note that the recipes themselves are NOT on the website.

When you have some ingredients around, and can't think of what to do, rather than searching Epicurious for a recipe, or taking 25 books off the shelf, you go to the website. Assuming you've already registered the cookbooks you own, you type in an ingredient or three, and it searches the books you own, generates a list of recipes, and tells you a bit about each recipe and which book and page.

So it's like a master index of the cookbooks on your shelf.

Clever, but not something I think I'd pay for.

[Jane @ EYB]

I'm the co-founder of Eat Your Books and would like to clarify that you can request books to be indexed. Before we launched we indexed what we thought were the 700 most likely books that cookbook lovers would own. The intention was (and is in fact happening) that as members join they request books we haven't indexed yet so we can then prioritize future indexing. We are also adding new major books as they are published. So, send us your index requests, foodtrip, and we will increase that 50% ratio.

I do hope DanielK that you will try EYB and find it is worth the fee. As you can imagine it costs a lot to index each book, especially monsters like The Joy of Cooking, and it increases the value of your cookbook collection enormously. For the first time you can search all of your cookbooks simultaneously and search by lots of criteria that aren't in the book index such as herbs, spices, ethnicity, special diet, etc. For the first time you can find all the recipes in your cookbooks that contain a particular ingredient or you can combine search criteria - show me all my Vietnamese soups containing shrimp.

We have only just launched so are very open to comments and suggestions for new features.

[DanielK]

I'm sure you've already spent a bazillion hours doing market research, but I wish there would have been a way to do this via advertising dollars and charges to the publishers/authors to get their books indexed, rather than the users.

Most users, myself included, just don't like to pay for access to information on the web.

[DonRocks]

Most users, myself included, just don't like to pay for access to information on the web.

I would think that if it's unique content (and it sounds like this is), some people will be willing to pay for it. How many and how much is another matter (and I guess the ultimate question).

This reminds me of the HOT lanes being constructed on the beltway.

[Jane @ EYB]

We did consider long and hard about how to fund the website. We decided that most of our potential members will have invested hundreds (thousands?) of dollars in their cookbook collection so $2 a month to get much better usage didn't seem unreasonable. The other funding models suggested were rejected: advertising is very volume driven - we aren't trying for millions of casual vistors, more a smaller number of members who really care about their cookbooks. Also personally I find pop-ups and intrusive ads for naff products (the kind of cooking products I never use) quite annoying. The second funding model suggested of publishers or authors paying for their books to be indexed would work for new cookbooks that they are trying to promote but most of us have well-used cookbooks on our shelves going back 10-30 years (or more). No publisher is going to pay to have older and even out-of-print cookbooks indexed. But these are the cookbooks we cherish. So I do hope you are wrong that mnost people won't pay for anything on the internet. If something has a value to you it shouldn't matter whether it is on the internet, through your TV, through your mailbox or in the store. If it's a great product and you want it, you should pay for it.

[lperry]

Has anyone used MacGourmet?

[ktmoomau]

No, but let me know what you think.  Currently I have been scanning recipes I pull from magazine or other sources into Evernote then just do a search for a particular keyword I want, seems to be working pretty well.

[Rieux]

I love eat your books. I've been using it about six months now and it simplifies my weekly decisions on what to make and reminds me of recipes I might not have thought of when searching an ingredient.

[Rieux]

I love eat your books. I've been using it about six months now and it simplifies my weekly decisions on what to make and reminds me of recipes I might not have thought of when searching an ingredient.

[Pat]

I love eat your books. I've been using it about six months now and it simplifies my weekly decisions on what to make and reminds me of recipes I might not have thought of when searching an ingredient.

I like it more than I thought I would.  It can be really helpful in coming up with or narrowing down ideas.  It's especially easy when a recipe pops up in a book that I can see/reach from my computer.   I wouldn't rely on it as my sole source of recipe storage, but it's a great help.

Many years ago I had recipe software that became out-of-date and I couldn't transfer to a new computer.  Lately I've discovered that my OS is so old that a lot of newer apps don't work for it.

Mostly I save recipes as word processing files and upload ones I am especially interested in or don't want to lose to Google Drive.  Drive keeps nagging me to get a Chrome browser because it doesn't like Safari and sometimes flat out refuses to work with Safari.

[lperry]

I like the idea of Cook your Books.  I always wonder if I would use it.  I would very much like a computerized database to save all the things I bookmark or tear out of magazines.  I may take one for the team and try MacGourmet.  According to the website, you can store everything on your main computer, then use the iPad in the kitchen.  Worth a try for $25 on sale at CultofMac. 

[ktmoomau]

I like the idea of Cook your Books.  I always wonder if I would use it.  I would very much like a computerized database to save all the things I bookmark or tear out of magazines.  I may take one for the team and try MacGourmet.  According to the website, you can store everything on your main computer, then use the iPad in the kitchen.  Worth a try for $25 on sale at CultofMac. 

You could get a free Evernote account first and see if this works for you.  It has great search functionality and works across a PC/iPad etc.  I forget how many free pages you get per month, but it's a good size.

[Pool Boy]

I need a new solution. I print everything out and it accumulates in stacks that I use for inspiration. This becomes unmanageable very quickly and they I organize in to piles like Beef, Chicken, Cookies, sides, Veg, Salads, etc. They all get binder clipped together and becomes somewhat more manageable. I really need to make a database. Anyone ever make a Tastebook? Just curious. To do it right, it'd take me years to get all of the keeper recipes in one place, make them all (perfectly) once to get the great picture, and then share with friends.

[Pool Boy]

I almost wonder if we could all make a DonRockwellian Tastebook. Faced with picking ONE DISH for participants, imagine culling down your entire repertoire to pick ONE DISH that represents you, on a plate. Do it, document it, picture it, nail it, submit it.

????

[lperry]

I'm liking MacGourmet so far.  It has a very nice import feature, so everything I've torn out of Gourmet or Bon Appetit over the years gets seamlessly downloaded from the web pages.  NY Times things, not so much, but it isn't difficult at all.  Searching is quick and easy, too.  A couple more weeks and I should know if I'm really going to use it and like it.  

[lizzie]

I was once stopped by a policeman in a very rural part of PA (my kids even ten years later yell at me if they think I have "rolled through a stop sign") but was not ticketed because the cop got so annoyed with me looking through all the computer printed recipes in the glovebox while trying to find my registration, that he told me just to go. That is my filing system - print several recipes before I leave work, stop at the grocery store on the way home taking one recipe inside with me, and store all the others in my car for future (never to be used) reference.

[ElGuapo]

You could get a free Evernote account first and see if this works for you.  It has great search functionality and works across a PC/iPad etc.  I forget how many free pages you get per month, but it's a good size.

This is exactly what I do. I save my recipes to a Evernote notebook for access on my iPhone/iPad/Mac.

[ktmoomau]

This is exactly what I do. I save my recipes to a Evernote notebook for access on my iPhone/iPad/Mac.

And you could separate them into separate notebooks if you wanted to for things like desserts, etc, I don't because I find the search feature pretty good.

[ElGuapo]

And you could separate them into separate notebooks if you wanted to for things like desserts, etc, I don't because I find the search feature pretty good.

Exactly. I've often thought about separating them, but search works so well that I don't have to.

[Anna Phor]

Recipes that have been in my possession since before ... about 2010, I think ?   ... are in a spiral bound notebook. Some are hand written in, some are pasted in. There is the semblance of a table of contents at the beginning that runs for at least the first half of the book.

Newer recipes are in dropbox; accessible from my phone so I can shop for ingredients, accessible from my laptop in the kitchen so the small assistant can read them to me and I can make on-the-fly changes.

Some recipes are in books and I remember which book and which recipe, mostly.

A few family recipes reside somewhere within gmail and are searchable. Mostly these are recipes that my mother has emailed to me. ("Brandy butter" lives in gmail, but I have a terrible time finding it every year.)

It's entirely chaotic but works beautifully.

[lperry]

I'm loving MacGourmet.  The best feature thus far is 1. the import button that, within a single hour, reduced an inch-high stack of torn magazine pages into nearly 100 recipes in the database.  They are scalable, and I can make shopping lists.  It is also easy to edit so I can keep track of what I changed and what worked or didn't.  I'll keep going through my notebooks and adding recipes, and, last night, as I leafed through a Bon Appetit, I pulled out my laptop and, with the click of a couple of buttons, imported the recipes that caught my eye.  No more trying to find the recipe, or struggling to remember the title to search online, or rifling through a stack of pages.  Such a time saver.

2. The "chef view" mode puts the recipe full screen and disables the screen saver so you don't have to tap the thing with messy fingers.  The text is big enough that I can read it from across the room.

3.  They have a cloud server, so I can sync recipes between my desktop and laptop in a flash.  The laptop is what I use in the kitchen.

Finally, 4. because I tend to finish my work day at the computer, I find myself opening the database and putting in a search word for something I have in the kitchen that needs cooking.  It's the little push of inspiration I need, and the search function seems to be Mac OS driven, because the recipes are sorting as I finish typing the word.  If I had known, I happily would have paid full price.

What I have not used yet are the places for notes on wines, beer, and cheeses.  

[Pool Boy]

I'm loving MacGourmet.  The best feature thus far is 1. the import button that, within a single hour, reduced an inch-high stack of torn magazine pages into nearly 100 recipes in the database.  They are scalable, and I can make shopping lists.  It is also easy to edit so I can keep track of what I changed and what worked or didn't.  I'll keep going through my notebooks and adding recipes, and, last night, as I leafed through a Bon Appetit, I pulled out my laptop and, with the click of a couple of buttons, imported the recipes that caught my eye.  No more trying to find the recipe, or struggling to remember the title to search online, or rifling through a stack of pages.  Such a time saver.

2. The "chef view" mode puts the recipe full screen and disables the screen saver so you don't have to tap the thing with messy fingers.  The text is big enough that I can read it from across the room.

3.  They have a cloud server, so I can sync recipes between my desktop and laptop in a flash.  The laptop is what I use in the kitchen.

Finally, 4. because I tend to finish my work day at the computer, I find myself opening the database and putting in a search word for something I have in the kitchen that needs cooking.  It's the little push of inspiration I need, and the search function seems to be Mac OS driven, because the recipes are sorting as I finish typing the word.  If I had known, I happily would have paid full price.

What I have not used yet are the places for notes on wines, beer, and cheeses.  

Is it all manual input, or can you scan and OCR it?  Also, is there an ability to print our recipes stored in the app? I ask because I do not have the ability to have electronics in the kitchen (ok I refuse, except for mobile phones), and I prefer the ability to jot notes down, with a pencil and sometimes messy or wet fingers that would not be laptop or table or mobile device friendly....

[Ilaine]

How do I organize my recipes?  I don't.  Most of the things I cook, I don't need a recipe.

For new things, I do one of four things: 1) Google recipe search, which is very good; 2) a full online membership to the entire Cooks Illustrated family; 3) search Food52; 4) grab a bunch of cookbooks from the bookshelf, sit down at the dining room table, and browse.

I have a lot of cookbooks that are arranged by cuisine - Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Italian, French, Greek, Middle Eastern, Louisiana, American, compendium.

When I see a recipe online that I like, I print it out and put it on top of the microwave, where it promptly becomes forgotten.  Recently, I went through the inches thick stack to cull out recipes I won't ever use, and it was like an archeological expedition.  At the top, Paleo and gluten free.  In the middle, phases I went through, like Chinese.  At the very bottom, vegan/Essylstine/Engine 2.  Tofu appeared with that and Chinese.  I actually like fresh tofu but not enough to make it, and otherwise detest it.  I put at least three inches of printouts in the recycle bin.  It struck me that printing out recipes and saving them is a waste of paper.  Everything I want I either have in a cookbook on my bookshelf or can find online.

Lately I have been buying cookbooks via Kindle, and I do wish there was some way to search across my Kindle library.  If there is, please let me know.

[lperry]

Is it all manual input, or can you scan and OCR it?  Also, is there an ability to print our recipes stored in the app? I ask because I do not have the ability to have electronics in the kitchen (ok I refuse, except for mobile phones), and I prefer the ability to jot notes down, with a pencil and sometimes messy or wet fingers that would not be laptop or table or mobile device friendly....

I had to look up OCR, so the short answer is, I don't know.  You can make clippings of recipes from web pages, so if you can open it in a browser window, maybe it would work?  Mariner Software is the developer if you want to ask them.  You can print, and make cookbooks, and export, and various other things I probably won't use.  For an extra $3, you can put an app on your iPad or iPhone, access the cloud, and get your recipes that way, too.