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Jam Berry Solutions

Organise Your Cook Books and Recipes

Time Required: 1/2 hour

Where do you store your cook books?

The kitchen is a great place, but most of us have them on a shelf that is left over after everything else has its place. Not so for me…These days cook books are some of our most precious and beautiful books.  

Step 1

Start with the BOOKS (loose papers later)

Find your favourite books, and find a place for them

• Do you have any special cook books you could use on a coffee table?
• Do you have a space that you can put narrow shelves (available from Ikea) to create a book display on the wall?

Step 2

Decide if you really want to keep ALL those books. Discard or donate books that you

• no longer suitable because of long term dietary requirements
• rarely use due to too simple or complex or personal tastes

• are outdated

Step 3

With the rest of your collection sort your books by either

• Food type
• Book style (for instance woman’s weekly books together)
• Author

Step 4

• Gather recipe cards, hand written notes, magazine recipe pages
• Decide on how you best want to store YOUR favourites. Some great ideas include:

Recipe Cards and Box

«   This method is easy to add to, and easy to remove cards that you no longer want

«   Cards are useful when meal planning. For example 5 week day meals means finding 5 recipe cards that you want to use and pulling them out from the box, keep them with the shopping list or clipped together in the kitchen.

«   Remember to have a system to ensure they get filed away after use.

«   Remember you must have blank cards and add your favourite recipes to them.

Recipe Binder

«   A recipe binder or folder with dividers is a great way to ensure all loose papers stay together. Some of our best recipes come on a hand written napkin or torn from a magazine.

«   Use a 2-ring binder that you can use a standard hole punch for quick filing. Kikki K has really cool binders at present.

«   Always put the source of the recipe i.e. Grandma’s Shortbread or Nana’s chocolate fudge or Sally’s dinner party.  Keep the original paper > give personality and depth to your binder and it will create a scrapbook style heirloom.

«   Clear covers are a great way to store recipes you want preserved { a little bit of cooking always ends up on the recipe}

«   Dividers are great to sort by. Use heading that work best for YOUR style of cooking. Some examples are:

·    Cooking Information-ideal for tips, appliance information and planning

·    Appetizers and Snacks           

·    Nibbles

·    Breads

·    Cakes

·    Biscuits and Slices

·    Desserts

·    Mains Meals

·    Eggs and Cheese

·    Fish and Shellfish

·    Grilling and BBQ

·    Meats

·    Poultry

·    Pasta

·    Pies and Tarts

·    Salads and Dressings

·    Sauces and Relishes

·    Soups and Stews

·    Vegetables

·    Growing and Gardening

·    Kids Cooking

Personally, I keep it simple

Starters > Mains > Desserts > Cooking information

Recipe Notebook

«   Notebooks are great and some what like a journal. And perfect to create as a family favourites type book. Also a great gift for your adult child when leaving home with their favourite family recipes and household tips.

«   Note that once a recipe is in, besides tearing out pages, it is permanent.

«   Spiral bound are best as they will sit open flat when cooking.

«   Use glue sticks or double sided tape to stick in recipes, and add lots of

hand-written recipes.

«   It is a great idea to date a family recipe for future reference. We have recipes in our family that have been handed down through generations.

 Step 5

Store your COOK BOOK AND RECIPE COLLECTION so it has some

meaning and purpose.

Some other items to keep on hand

«   Weekly meal planner

«   Shopping list

«   Pens

Now ~ have a break, you deserve it because you have made your life and your families or flatmates a little easier today J BLISS.