Taming My Out-Of-Control Recipe Collection

How I’m going to eliminate the mess, organize the chaos, and prepare for our summer produce!

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Once upon a time, I had a very organized system for my loose paper recipes. I loved going through cooking magazines, copying down recipes, and printing off delicious sounding meals from my favorite websites, and they all went into my collection of recipe binders. These binders were well organized and housed a wide variety of potential tasty dishes, from the traditional standards to the ambitious gourmet.

But then I had kids.

All of a sudden, those fancy dishes that take hours to make and require a hundred ingredients became completely unrealistic, and all that time I had on my hands to keep my system organized? Yeah, that left the building, too.

Over time, little choices here and there to simply pile the recipe on the stack rather than find a home for it have snowballed into … well… a giant mess. My nicely organized system has become nothing more than a big heap of papers. When I actually remember I have a recipe, I have to go through the whole stack to find it. But more often than not, I forget I even have 90% of them.

In order to make meal times and menu planning sessions faster and easier (not to mention taking advantage of sales and our garden produce), I want to finally get around to a job I’ve been wanting to do for a few years.

Goal #1: Create a new recipe binder

One of my goals this month is going to be to create a new recipe binder. As I said, a lot of the recipes in my binders are no longer realistic for this season of my life, plus the majority of the recipes I currently use are not even in the binders. So, it’s time to revamp my system and develop some new binders that will actually be a help to me!

Now, a word about some changes I’m bringing to my mini-goals. A couple of weeks ago, I read the book Taming the To-Do Listby Glynnis Whitwer, and it was very eye-opening for me. One of the things I learned was that people who tend to procrastinate should NOT put big multi-step projects on their to-do list as one line item. It’s too overwhelming. Rather, they should break down the project into as many small steps as they can think of, and then celebrate the successful completion of each task.

I thought that was pure genius, so I’m going to start applying it to my monthly mini-goals.Here is the breakdown of steps for my recipe binder project:

Step #1: Go through my existing binders and throw away recipes I know I won’t use (I’m going to be ruthless about this! Dinners that take hours, require an expensive list of ingredients, or that require lots of babysitting at the stove are simply not going to happen for the next several years!)

Step #2: Sort my recipe pages by meal type (I won’t completely decide on my categories until I go through my recipes)

Step #3: Buy new binders, plastic sleeves, and tabs (if necessary)

Step #4: Put recipes into sleeves

Step #5: Label tabs and organize my recipes by section

Goal #2: Create a “Garden Recipe” binder & notebook

My other goal (yes, there are only two this month) is to create a “garden recipe” binder and notebook on Evernote. This is a project that has been on my potential to-do list for a couple years. Basically, I want all my recipes for using our garden produce in two centralized locations: a physical one and a digital one.

Every year, before our garden starts producing, I’ll see a recipe for cucumbers or zucchini or tomatoes or corn, and I’ll think, “Ooooh, I need to save this for when we have our cucumbers, zucchini, corn, etc.” … and then I toss it in the pile or save a digital copy somewhere. Then, when our plants do start putting on fruits/vegetables, I am always running around trying to pull together recipes to use everything, and I am left feeling behind and overwhelmed. And every year I think, “I am going to be prepared next year!” And the process is repeated.

But not this year! I’m a teensy bit behind, as our garden is just starting to blossom, but there’s still some time, and this is going to be the year that I am finally well-prepared for our harvest!

Here are the baby steps I will follow for this project:

For the physical binder:

Step #1: Buy the binder, plastic sleeves, and tabs

Step #2: Go through printed recipes and throw away the ones I know I won’t use

Step #3: Put the ones that are left in plastic sleeves

Step #4: Organize recipes by type of dish

To create the notebook in Evernote:

Step #1: Create a “Garden Recipe” notebook in Evernote

Step #2: Go through the recipes I have on Evernote and move any garden recipes to the notebook and/or add the “garden recipe” tag

Step #3: Add additional tags for ingredients (eg. tomatoes, zucchini, basil, etc.). That will make my recipes very searchable later. This will come in handy for when I have a surplus of a particular food and I’m looking for recipes to use it up.

Step #4: Go through my saved posts on Facebook and clip to the new notebook (adding tags as I go)

Step #5: Browse Pinterest for more recipes! (I’m all over this step!) Clip to the new notebook and add all tags that apply.

Supplies Needed:

Right now my recipe “system” is in complete shambles, but I think these goals will restore it to its former glory and bring peace and order back to my meal planning process! And I’m pretty excited about that! I hate feeling chaotic and unprepared, how about you?

What do you think of my plan? Any tricks that you use that you’d like to share? Any garden-to-table recipes that you’d like to pass along? Share them in the comments below!

Taming My Out-Of-Control Recipe Collection - The Merry Momma (2024)

Goal #1: Create a new recipe binder

Goal #2: Create a “Garden Recipe” binder & notebook

For the physical binder:

To create the notebook in Evernote:

Supplies Needed:

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