Organizing Your Life

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Okay, well just your recipes. But for me, having my recipes organized on my computer means I don't have piles of magazines with recipes I want to save piled up around the house, or pages that I've ripped out lying around, and this makes me more sane. Or feel that way anyway.

So I wanted to share how I save recipes with you. I have tried many different systems over the years. I say "over the years" as if I am middle aged or something, but I've been cutting recipes out of magazines for probably 15 years*. I recently flipped through my journals from when I was backpacking through Australia when I was 18, and there were recipe cut outs pasted in there. I was living in a tent and cooking over an open fire at the time for god sakes (and yes, buying magazines that cost a third of a weeks "rent" at the campsite, because I am addicted).

I've tried pasting recipes them into journals, putting them in file folders, albums, writing them onto recipe cards, but all of these were time consuming or made it hard for find the recipe I wanted. Thank goodness for the Internet. 99% of recipes in magazines, on TV, etc, can be found online (no, that's not a scientific fact or anything). Now I only save as many magazines as will fit in one magazine file and when it's full I spend some time going through what I've dog eared and saving them to Internet bookmarks that I have organized into folders. Sometimes I save the same recipe to multiple folders, like "Cakes" and "Chocolate"- sort of cross referencing them. I you have the same problem as I had with "recipe clutter", hopefully this will help. Now I just need to find a good system for saving stuff I find in design magazines... 

*I also remember watching Yan Can Cook on sick days when I was probably only 8 years old. That and the Flintstones which was always on at noon.

One Year Ago: Roasted Vegetables with Lemon Aioli