How do you store your recipes?

I used to have a three-ring binder that I'd paste recipes in. Then I had 3/5 cards. Now that I've got such a huge collection of recipes, I have them on 4/6 cards in a shoe box-sized container. It's actually one of those boxes meant to hold photographs, and I make dividers out of old cereal-box cardboard, because it's sturdier than the thin ones you can buy. The box is almost full--that's a whole lot of cooking! New recipes get shoved in just as they are for a while--whether they are a newspaper clipping or a print-out from a website. Then once in a while I will sit down with a scissors and tape and attach them to 4/6 cards. Sometimes by the time I do this, I think twice about saving a particular recipe. It has to be a good memory to make it worth the effort!

I save them on my hard drive in a recipe file and in my bookmarks. ;)

And I have a program to store the stuff I've tested and are keepers

my favorite cookbooks. It's amazing I can ever find anything.

file folders, yellow legal pads, and just piles of things I've printed off or been given in heaps under other cookbooks. I started some online folders for some, too. I get frustrated with myself when I'm trying to find an old tried and true and have to dig through stuff. It might be why I keep trying new things! :D

I have lots of books and my mother's recipes, but most 'recipes' that I use are filed in my head!

are more of a guideline. ;)

I have a bookcase full of cookbooks and 2 folders full of printed or copied or jotted-down recipe - but mostly I just use these for once a year kinds of foods like Christmas cookies or fatty-yummy party foods, and for things that are baked - breads and cakes and such I need recipes.

But mostly I look on the internet, or read C&B for an idea, check to see if I have everything, then go to the kitchen with it all in my head and have fun!

http://www.ffts.com/info.htm

Now You're Cooking recipe software. It's quick, easy, accepts imports from many different sources, allows you to add pictures, create your own cookbooks, and keep everything orgainzed. It's ShareWare - you can download and try for free, and if you like it you can register and receive periodic upgrades for a very reasonable price ($30 or less). It's a bargain for such a full-featured system


Now You're Cooking! (NYC) is award-winning, versatile recipe and cooking software to help you organize and maintain your recipes, plan nutritious meals, control your diet and fitness, create shopping lists, and manage grocery costs. NYC runs in Windows Vista/XP/Me/2000/98/95/NT4. Enter your own recipes, or import a gazillion recipes from our recipe library (158,000+ importable recipes plus links to 0.5 million more). Maintain your recipes and use spell-check dictionaries in any of 14 languages.

Features: (http://www.ffts.com/features.htm)
Convenient, Friendly Interface
Recipe Management
Finding Recipes
Importing and Exporting Recipes
Meal Planning
Automatic Shopping List
Cost Management
Nutrition Analysis
Fitness Tracking
Printed Outputs

I didn't know stuff like that was available. The most high-tech I get is to get recipes from Allrecipes.com and then print it in a 4x6 card format and add the nutritional info in.

If there's a hard copy I want to keep, it goes in the photo album. If I get it online ...

I copy the one or two recipes I actually liked into the blank pages of one of the cookbooks I'm keeping: general recipes in a general book, veggie recipes in a veggie book and baking recipes in a baking book.

I'm not organized enough for cards or notebooks and this works for me.

There was a very good reason I was a nurse and not a secretary.

binder, with category tabs that I haven't opened up in years.

I'm finding lately the best way to keep a recipes is on my computer.

In the past when I wanted to make something, it was difficult to remember which recipe book, which magazine it came from. So much easier to keep them on-line.

I've got books and boxes, but my biggest effort to organize was when I started using Bento, which is a cool database app (I think it's only for Mac, though). I not only have all my family faves, but when I see something online that I'd like to try, I can copy and paste it all, including photos and a link to the original. Unfortunately, that means I eventually have to make room for an old computer in the kitchen so I don't have to print things out, but it's especially cool because I can share the file with my kids as they head out on their own.

There are also lots of sites that allow you to keep your own collection of recipes, including diet (SparkPeople) and cooking sites (RecipeThing). Not quite as cool and Apple-y, but very utilitarian and easy to share (or not) as you see fit.

program I have, but can't figure out how to export them anywhere or email them out, and the desktop isn't on the internet anyway right now. Sigh. So if I wanted to move them online or even to a file of Word documents I can't. Can't cut and paste with the silly format. Grrr.

Divided by course or main ingredient. Cookbooks have lots of Post-it flags marking most used recipes.

A three ring binder for recipes I print from the Internet, a 3x5 and a 4x6 box crammed full of recipes. Several plastic zip lock bags holding all of those 3x5 and 4x6 cards I haven't bought new boxes for. Then there are the magazine and newspaper recipes that are just loose because I have been too lazy to glue them to 3x5 and 4x6 cards, or glue them to notebook paper for the binder. Then there are the pages that fell out of well used cookbooks. Those are shoved into the pocket on the front and back covers of the binder.

It's a good thing no one else in the house needs to use my "system".

I don't do recipes very much. I have a boatload of cookbooks that I sometimes use. I save old cooking magazines, too. But most 'recipes' are in my head.

type of food, desserts, entrees, and a 'catch all' one

all the little weird sized ones off the back of packages or Grammy's 3x5 cards I have in a cool clear vinyl envelope thingie that has a velcro closure

and of course, my two shelves of cookbooks that I use often

and, years ago, I got into the habit of using old letters (in their envelopes) and photographs as bookmarks for the pages where favorite recipes were located. Postcards, sometimes a page from the daily calendar with notes on it about what to do that day.

You cannot imagine the fun I have when I pull one of those books off the shelf and start going through it - cards from people no longer with us, invitations to events I'd forgotten, postcards from places all over the world. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm so glad I started doing it, even if it sometimes startles me and makes me sad when I see a beloved friend or relative.

The stuff I find online I just cut and copy into a Word file that's gotten to an impressive size, but I haven't tried most of them. That program's "Find" feature is better than a table of contents.

Of course, my late Mom's handwritten recipes are tucked inside my first cookbook - a late sixties copy of Joy Of Cooking.

You cannot imagine the fun I have when I pull one of those books off the shelf and start going through it - cards from people no longer with us, invitations to events I'd forgotten, postcards from places all over the world. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm so glad I started doing it, even if it sometimes startles me and makes me sad when I see a beloved friend or relative.

_________I do the same thing.

I say that because I am currently looking at a large filebox full of recipes that need organizing, someway, somehow. I would like to bypass the learning curve and just look through everyone else's methods for a few clues. So this post just makes my day! :-)