Recipe Round-up

Anyone who knows me, knows that I like to organize. Maybe a little too much.....I re-organize my two tiny closets every six months when my sister comes to visit, and I re-organize my kids' closets every new clothing season, and I re-organize other people's kitchens, closets, etc just for the fun of it. Hey, everyone has to have a passion. :)

This past summer I have been trying to make at least two new recipes every time I plan meals (every two weeks), and I have found quite a few keepers. Nathan always says that I'd better be keeping these recipes to make again, but the best I had done was to dog-ear the pages in the magazines. Quite honestly, this was making me kind of stressed out when meal planning came around, because I wanted to keep trying new things, but also include the great recipes that I had already found. And I hate when I find an amazing recipe that I have forgotten about for months; I feel like I've been missing out!

My recipes were in need of organization. Here is how they were looking a few days ago:
- multiple cookbooks, most of which I use (because I had already gone through them :)
- a box of well and poorly written recipe cards
- some recipes in a folder on my email
- stacks of TOH and a few random recipe magazines
- a pile of printed out recipes
- an outdated list of "go-to" recipes for dinners

Here is how they look now:
- a small three ring binder that has the following sections: snacks/apps, bread, side-dishes, main entrees, desserts. I printed out every emailed recipe and all of my TOH favorites as well.
- a slip of paper in the clear front of the binder that has my other four favorite cookbooks listed, so I don't forget to look at them for ideas.
- I am going to put all of my recipe cards in the clear plastic photo sleeves, so I can see both sides, and add them to the binder. I just need to buy the sleeves at Walmart.

I feel so much more organized - and, I feel excited to plan meals once again! I found some great recipes that I had forgotten about, and I think that I will be able to build-up a great repertoire of delicious recipes that everyone likes! Hope this inspires YOU to organize something....it will be fun!