Recipe madness

[Jill]

A few months ago I decided to clear out the cooking magazines. But I couldn't bear to get rid of some of the recipes I hadn't tried yet, so I cut the ones that sounded good, recycled the bulk of the magazines (ads, photos, etc.) and gave myself a big pat on the back for being so organized. Well today I went to look for a recipe and discovered that I had literally hundreds of recipe clippings to go through.

What was I thinking? Did I really believe I would someday prepare Blueberry Cardamom Panna Cotta or Fruit Carpaccio with Yogurt and Lemongrass Glaze? Or how about this gem -- Shiitake Mushroom, Grilled Corn and Three-Cheese Veggie Chiles Rellenos with Tomato Ancho Chile Cream Sauce? :doh:

For now my plan is to recycle them all except a few very simple ones. Then I would like to actually cook all the recipes I've saved, and for the real winners (should there be any), transfer them to recipe cards and toss all the clippings. Not sure that's realistic though. Does anyone have a good system for dealing with recipe clippings?

[SteveinMN]

Does anyone have a good system for dealing with recipe clippings?
I have waaaay too many recipes hanging around, in cookbooks, clippings, and electronic (text files and PDFs on my computer). I do find that I need to go through my recipes and cookbooks periodically to cull the herd -- foods we no longer eat, preparations that are very time consuming, etc.

The computer files are pretty easy to deal with -- I can stuff them in folders and/or tag them with key ingredients, so they're easy to find (though they're also much too easy to collect -- highight, drag, done). The cookbook recipes generally are indexed and I can use those Post-It tape flags to mark particular favorites.

I have resisted the impulse to convert clippings. Maybe it's a personal weirdness of mine, but I can remember what most recipe clippings look like ("Oh, that one I got from the New York Times, so it's in the Times font on newsprint." "I clipped the enchilada recipe from the back of the enchilada package, so it's a little piece of plastic." That has worked for me better than converting all recipes to one standard format so that an individual recipe does not stand out. I'm also loath to take that time before I make the recipe because some recipes are tossed shortly after we eat the dish. I do keep the clippings in folders: "Desserts", "Main Dishes", "Breads", etc.

I suspect that's not very helpful at all. :~) I know some people stick with a few tried-and-true favorites; that's just not me, so I have to deal with the problem differently. I did read somewhere (here?) about people taking pictures of clipped recipes so they can put them on their computer and at least have most/all of their recipes in one place. The concern there is that you end up with a bunch of graphics files which cannot be text searched to locate, say, "Beef Stew" or "Aunt Mosey's Fudge". One solution there might be to use software to tag the graphics files with the title, key ingredients, preparation methods, genres, whatever works for you.

[herbgeek]

For years, I've cut pages of recipes out of magazines that looked interesting. When I first started to cook, I selected anything that was interesting. When I got older, I realized that I really didn't need to go to 5 different stores to get exotic ingredients that I'd likely never use again (this was pre-internet days) and so I only started collecting recipes with ingredients I normally have on hand (I do have a pretty well stocked pantry.). Now I realize that I don't need yet another version of something I already have, so I don't bother with those. My system is intentional procrastination: I rip out the recipes and stack them up in an inbox for 6 months or so. On a boring rainy day, I will go through the stack and weed some out, and will highlight a few to try right away. The keepers go into a binder intended for photographs with those sticky pages where you pull the plastic up to put in your item. This is organized by type: appetizers, breads, tea time, main dishes etc.

For recipes that are more ideas or combinations rather than instructions, I keep those in a moleskine notebook in my own handwriting. I don't have a good digital solutions- I have them all in gmail but unless I know to look for them, I'll never see them again. I don't have them in a place where I could just browse.

[Dhiana]

Google is my recipe book. Used to have a collection of books but now I have about 6 books of good BASIC recipes, plus 2 heirloom recipe books.
Joy of cooking
Moosewood
A Bean cooking book
Japanese cooking book
2 Indian cooking books
& a small binder of clipped/traded/Internet recipes.

Someone posted just recently about a cookbook/recipe challenge for 2013. That might be a way for you to help cull he ones you won't ever use?