OHC Wk 5: Recipes & Cookbooks

Nw that I'm done with the big project of organizing my basement playroom, it's way past time to get back to the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge.

Week 5's challenge is recipes and cookbooks. Now, I do have a system that mostly works for me, but I did tweak it just a little bit and it's perfect now! All of my recipes are stored on this bookcase in my dining room. I do have quite a large collection of Gooseberry Patch cookbooks and extra cookbooks are stored in a box in the basement.

I also have this small box of recipes from my grandmother. There are a few spiral bound notebooks with recipes she clipped and saved, some magazines that have her notes written in it, and recipe cards with her handwriting. I have this box stored in the hutch in the dining room.

On the top of the bookcase, I have this basket. The purple box holds my coupons, I have a meal planner notepad with a grocery list, a couple of my current favorite Gooseberry Patch cookbooks, a pack of index cards to write down recipes I want to cook again, and several file folders with recipes sorted into categories to make meal planning easy. My categories are: beef, chicken, other meat, meatless mains, side dishes, desserts, and other/misc. I also keep the current grocery flyers in this basket if there is a good meat sale I want to make sure I plan for. When planning the menu, first I check to see what meats are on sale, and I'll find a recipe or two to use. Then I'll fill in with chicken and ground beef recipes. I'll usually choose one dessert and one breakfast dish too if I'm in the mood. But anyway, that process will be a different challenge... so onward to the rest of my organization system....

I love this mini clipboard - I got it a few months ago at Michael's in the dollar bin and it is just the right size to hold my recipes and my menu planning sheet. I take this with me along with the current week's recipes when I do my grocery shopping.

I have this 3 ring binder for any recipes that the family decides are keepers.. I'll take pictures of the food and make a scrapbook page. Until they make it in the scrapbook I have a recipe box I keep them in... I also have recipes that I want to tweak to make better in the recipe box too.

Lastly, I have a 4 year old who is a very picky eater and has food allergies, so he has his own recipe book. This has come in very handy during the times I have to stay in the hospital with Collin. Anyone can pick up this book and know what he can/will eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks. I used lunch paper bags for the inside pages so as I find recipes for food he will/can eat, I can easily put it on an index card and insert it into the paper bag for that section.