Recipe Binder Challenge

    

What's better than one recipe binder?   Two recipe binders?  8 )


Over the past year or so, I've sorted my recipes into two binders.  The binders were pretty much put together, I was just missing pretty covers for them.  I couldn't decide what to do for the covers  - they were too many cute papers in my scrapbook stash.  I ended up picking two semi coordinating papers from my scrap stash.  I wish that I had realized that I needed *two* sheets of each paper to do the cover and the spine.  Since I was using paper from my scrap stash, I only had one 12 x 12 sheet of each color.  There wasn't enough paper to completely fill the spine part of the binder.  Doh!  Still, it's better than it was before!

Anyway, one binder contains our favorites - those recipes that we enjoy having over and over (and over and over....).  This binder has what you would think of as the "traditional" tabs - chicken, beef, pasta, salads, bread machine recipes, crockpot recipes, cakes and cookies, etc.  Here is our family favorite binder -

 

I have a second binder that I call my "Monthly Recipe Ideas".  The idea is similar to having a weekly meal plan - only instead of planning for one week, you plan for the whole month instead. 

A few years ago, I noticed that there was a sort of seasonal theme to the recipes that I was collecting from magazines and from some of my favorite recipe blogs and websites.  For example - during the summer I was collecting recipes with a lot of fresh veggies and grilling recipes; and in the winter a lot of soups and stews and comfort food type dishes.  I started to put them in files such as "recipes that would be good to have in the summer" and "recipes that would be good to have in the fall".  That eventually evolved into creating monthly meal plans.  Each month has a tab and when I make my weekly meal plan, I pick most of my meals from the Monthly Recipe Ideas binder and then pick one or two meals from our family favorites.  That way, we don't eat the same things over and over and over and over.  Here are just a few of the recipes that I've filed under February -
1.  Kung pao chicken
2.  Chicken tikka masala
3.  BBQ cola meatballs and spaghetti squash mac n cheese
4.  Spicy tuna melt pie
5.  Spinach and tomato stuffed chicken
6.  Homemade beefaroni
7.  World's best shepard's pie
8.  Hot roast beef sandwichees
9.  Rosemary Turkey meatloaf

I add recipes to the monthly ideas binder as I collect them.  I put an index (or would that be a table of contents?) in the beginning that lists the name of each recipe and the month that it is filed under.  That way I don't end up with the same recipe in multple months. 

Here is what my monthly recipe ideas binder looks like -

There isn't room in our kitchen for these to sit out, so they are stored in a cabinet next to the stove -

Don't mind the messy shelf underneath - that is my baking supplies.  Those could use a good cleaning out - maybe that will be one of the challenges!





While I was taking pictures, I couldn't resist catching one of my Valentine roses -

Aren't they beautiful?