It’s always fun to find new ways to save time and money in the kitchen. Here are two simple ideas to help reduce clutter on the counters.
Let the library store your cookbooks
During my recent fight to reduce clutter in the house, Kris pointed out that I had a shelf full of cookbooks that I rarely use. “Why don’t we get rid of some of them,” she said. “Do we really need seven Thai cookbooks?” No we don’t. But what am I going to do when I decide I want to make Thai food? I could search the internet, but I have no idea what to search for. Instead, I’m going to head to the local library.
The library is a great way to explore books of all sorts, of course, but especially cookbooks. It can be tough to tell the good cookbooks from the poor just by browsing. Sometimes you’ve got to actually prepare a couple of recipes before you know whether a particular volume is any good. By using your library’s collection, you can test-drive different cookbooks, buying only those that you will truly use on a regular basis.
My friend Joel used to do this all the time. I don’t know if he owned a single cookbook, but he was always whipping up exotic dishes out of books he had borrowed from the public library. My friend Craig once held onto a library cookbook for nearly a year!
Create a cheat sheet of your favorite recipes
Though we try new recipes from time-to-time, Kris and I tend to make the same dishes over and over. Certain recipes become favorites. Recently she’s been entering our recipe library into a computerized database. This is convenient, but I’d like a way to keep our most-often used recipes closer at hand. Amy at Angry Chicken has a clever idea that I’m going to borrow: she made a cheat sheet containing her favorite recipes.
I had all my favorite recipes handwritten on random bits of paper all over the fridge and anytime a magnet fell so did a crucial recipe, landing in dust bunny land between the fridge and the counter never to be seen again. No more, I say! … I have already thanked myself a million times for doing this and it’s only been 4 days. It’s so much cleaner there now, less visually horrible, and if the sheet falls or gets thrashed, I can just print another. Oh, look out! I could even laminate it. Crazy, I tell you!
This second tip won’t save you any money, but the first could save you plenty (if you’re a cookbook nut like me). Both can help you keep a cleaner and saner kitchen.
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My wife created a recipe binder. Our favorite recipes, most used recipes, and any that she finds and wants to try, we keep in the binder. Instead of cutting out recipes from magazines or keeping a whole bunch of cookbooks around, she simply writes the recipe on an index card – ingredients on one side, directions on the other – and then puts the card in the binder. The binder pages are the type that hold two or three index cards individually per page.
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When I have certain ingredients and want to try a new recipe, I’ll look at the food network website (foodnetwork.com). Readers rate the recipes and you get an idea of whether you should add more salt or cook it a little longer, etc..It definitely saves time and gas going to the library, but you may need to go to the store and buy a few things.
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Why not create your own cookbook? Scan or copy the recipes you want/use often, and then take them to a copy shop and they can bind them for you. I’ve been meaning to do this for years… Then, when you’re craving something new, use a site like epicurious.com. If you like a recipe, and have a binder, then you can just print it, 3-hole punch it and add it in.
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Or you could go buy a cheap PDA (they start at around 80 bucks) and load your favorite recipe into them and leave it in the kitchen. when you want new recipes just sync them at your computer. Even a little PDA with minimal memory can hold probably hundreds of recipes without a problem.
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The Allrecipes.com site is good as well. I also find magazines and their companion websites useful–my favorites are “Cook’s Illustrated” and its spinoffs.
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I am making a cookbook for my younger sister at the moment. I have a notebook in the kitchen, and any time i make a recipe that I think she’d like, I write it down.
The notebook has become really useful for me, even before the cookbook gets made.
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As an author, I know how important it is to sell books, so I like to support my favorite authors by buying their books. I also like the convenience of being able to sit with few favorites. (As for having a library book for a year – the overdue fines would have paid for it several times over!)
I have about a dozen cookbooks and find they don’t take up much shelf space. I did recently purge a few unused ones though.
My favorite cookbook is a huge one by Mary Berry, which has a fantastic graphical index, recipes arranged by food group and time involved, and has all the classics – things like Chicken Cacciatore, Chile Con Carne, and about fifty different potato recipes, plus tips on preparation.
I do like the idea of making copies of favorites – my well-used books – like the breadmaker book – are getting really beaten up.
great site, thanks for the ideas!
Helen
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I email myself recipes – I usually put the name of the recipe in the subject line, paste in the text of the recipe, and include a link to the original. That way if I search my in-box for pumpkin, I’ll get any recipes with pumpkin ingredients.
Also, make friends with your library staff, find out how they do their collection development. Many libraries welcome patron suggestions for purchases. The library I used to work for had an *amazing* cookbook collection, I’m proud to say. I never buy cookbooks without test driving from the library first.
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I get lots of my recipes of the internet. Beth, I doubt you’re the Beth I worked with, but I also worked at a library with a great cookbook section. Over 5 shelves wide and expanding around onto 2 more. There was no point in owning a cookbook.
My sister put a lot of family recipes on her laptop. Helped especially when my mom was having surgery and she was cooking.
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That’s a good idea. I have found that I rarely use my cookbooks. On the other hand, I never go to the library.
I swear by AllRecipes.com, I’ve found so many good recipes there and you can save your favorites so you always know where they are. FoodNetwork.com is great too (also allows you to save favorites), though a bit slower.
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I used to keep a recipe notebook where I could either write recipes, or tape in clippings. When it filled up around Christmastime, I had a great idea:
I typed up my favorite recipes from the notebook, I looked through my bookmarks and blog posts for recipes I tried and liked, and I asked my husband for his family recipes (his mom has emailed him a few of her best dishes).
I made all these recipes into a booklet that I could print out on my own printer, and bind myself. (there are plenty of cheap/easy ways to assemble a simple book. You can also take it to a copy shop, or use a printer like Lulu.com.)
DIY cookbooks make excellent gifts. My brother and I both like to cook, but we don’t make many of the same recipes. This year, I’m going to ask him to collect his favorite recipes, too, and do a cookbook swap for Xmas.
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I just want to add recipezaar.com – my personal go-to place for everything dinner related. Recipes are rated by users and you can make selections by ingredient, diet, cuisine (Thai, anyone?), course, occasion and (my favorite) preparation time. Many users leave additions and changes. I usually end up cooking with the laptop on the kitchen counter (does that make it a countertop?).
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Recipezaar, allrecipes are all good. I even just google ingredients on hand sometimes, (chicken, lime, ginger) to see what recipes I get back. But you can’t beat a well done cookbook with photos for inspiration. I love Ina Garten’s for this reason!
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Something I intend to do once I finish my kitchen remodel is to us a small-form-factor PC in the kitchen. I’ve already got an unused LCD screen, wireless mouse and wireless keyboard, so all I need to do is cut some holes in the drywall to run the video and power cables up to the monitor from inside the cupboard, and voila, a kitchen PC! I’m still looking for the ultimate recipe program though. Cook’n looks pretty good.
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I also use a computerized database. It’s a program called MasterCook. I use an older version. Any time I try a recipe that I like, whether from my own cookbook, from a cookbook borrowed from the library, or from a website, I enter the recipe into MasterCook. Mastercook will calculate the nutritional information, allows me to enter recipes into different categories, etc. Then when I’m looking for a good recipe for chicken, I can do a search for chicken and see what my repertoire is.
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[...] thought a computer would be involved. JD documents a couple quick kitchen hacks. {via: Get Rich [...]
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I use MealsMatter.com, which also lets you plan your meals out on a calendar and generate a shopping list. I find this is really beneficial for grocery shopping since you have basically decided what you are going to cook and what you’ll need on hand. I lets you put in your own recipes, in categories and with keywords, and you can also search others’ recipes and leave comments and do ratings etc.
As for cookbooks, I think it’s good to have a large general cookbook on hand. I use Taste of Home’s cookbook and the Better Homes and Gardens’ cookbook on a regular basis, and most of the recipes come out amazing.
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I type the recipes I like on my computer, print them out, and put them in a three ring binder inside plastic sleeves. This makes the pages convenient to clean up and allows me to add and remove recipes from the book easily. I can also organize the recipes so that if I always like to make two things together, they are on opposite pages that are both visible at once. And even at my not-so-advanced age, it’s nice to have my recipes in a larger typeface than cookbooks generally have. I do this for recipes I encounter in magazines, library cookbooks, from the Internet, etc., but also from my own cookbooks; I like having my tried-and-true recipes all in one place to flip through and pick something out. I find that it aids meal planning.
This was totally my mom’s idea. I admired her book when I came home to visit and she started one for me with some of my favorite recipes of hers.
I also keep my recipe documents on a memory key so that when I travel to visit family or friends, I can take a turn making dinner without being limited to what I can remember.
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I like tip #2, but I do the opposite of tip #1. I go to the library frequently and get almost all my books there — since I have no interest in re-reading most books, why buy them and pay to inventory them permanently? On the other hand, I do want my cookbooks available all the time and whenever I want them. When hungry, who wants to jump in a car and head to the library — I want to grab a recipe and eat. I also often browse them for ideas outside of regular library operating hours. Finally, I refer to many cookbooks years and decades later, so having them around is a positive, not a negative. If tip #1 works for some, that’s great, but cookbooks are the only type of books that this avid library user buys and keeps.
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