Recipe Books and Binders

A friend recently told me that in an organizing book she read it recommended photocoping all of the recipes you like from your cookbooks and keeping them organized in a binder. Then donate or sell your cookbook collection to free up more space in your kitchen. Whhat? Get rid of my cookbooks? Seriously, what would I read before falling asleep at night?

However, this did get me thinking. I have a handful of cookbooks that I *love* and reference frequently. I have another (large) handful that I reference occasionally. And I have a few that I am not sure I've even opened. On top of that I have recipes printed and handwritten all over the place. They are in folders in my office, stuffed into cookbooks, used as scrap paper for my daughters artistic creations...in every room of my house one can find recipes floating around. It probably was high time I organized everything.

Side note: I love organizing.

Step 1: Create recipe binders. This was easy. I got one binder for tried and loved recipes and one for recipes to try. Then I got those write on tabs to separate everything into categories. 2 2" binders later all of my free floating recipes are organized.
Step 2: What about those cookbooks in the "never been opened" category? Yeah, time to open them. I should not have been surprised that there weren't too many recipes in them that I wanted to try so they are all being rehomed with friends or local libraries.
Step 3: Cooking Magazines. This is a whole other category of stuff in my house. I decided to only keep my all time favorite magazines, Eating Well, (which seriously, if you are not a subscriber, why not? I have never in my life been disappointed with a recipe from here, there are really few ads and the pictures are gorgeous. I'm just saying.) There are now in a nice magazine holder organized by season because that is how I reference them. From the rest I ripped out the recipes I wanted to keep, added them to the binder and recycled the magazines.

I must say I am LOVING my new recipe binders. They make life so easy and I also inserted a few lists in the front: "meals my husband likes" "quick and easy", etc.

An unexpected part of organizing my recipes was that it was a walk down my personal culinary history. I started gardening and becoming interested in cooking in college, so about 9-10 years ago. I remember the summer my roommate planted a tomato plant in our backyard and I was simply amazed that it actually produced tomatoes. The next summer I had turned the entire backyard into a garden (I tend to be over enthusiastic and unrealistic when it comes to gardening; it's only gotten worse with time). My gardening books are another collection of items I might consider evaluating sometime soon. But, I digress. Over the last decade my cooking, my thoughts on food, and my taste buds have seriously evolved and my cookbooks and recipes clearly reflect this evolution. There was that period of time that I did Weight Watchers and every recipe had "low-fat" ingredients in it. And those 5 Weight Watcher cookbooks. Then there was the evolution to eating the vegetables in my garden and the recipes that went with that... and then eating the vegetables grown locally, and then eating meat grown locally, and then eating only grassfed meat grown locally, and now eliminating as much processed food from my diet. There have also been phases. Exotic ingredients. Heirloom varieties of vegetables. Cooking authentic (fill in the location) food. Mastering the basics (this is an ongoing phase). Traditional French techniques (still working on those). And finally my culinary history includes Learning to cook with others in mind. In college I cooked for my tastes. When I met my husband I started to cook for his taste as well. When I had a baby I made baby food and researched childhood nutrition. And so on.

I have only been in the kitchen and garden for a decade. That's not very long. I can only imagine what will enhance my culinary experiences in the future.

Greens!

My first three CSA pick-ups have been overflowing with fresh greens. I like greens but my family has needed some convincing. My husband doesn't like the overwhelming flavor of some greens and my daughter is turned off by their texture (I think anyway. She basically told me that in 2yo language). So I have been searching high and low for some recipes to remedy these complaints.



I have found that, in general, cooking greens with a fat helps a lot for the taste problem. Bacon grease or butter sauteed with greens, garlic and onions seems to be a standby of a lot of recipes. We've done that. It is tasty enough for the husband. Of course I am not a *huge* fan of covering up all those flavors with lards. Another preparation that I prefer is a stir fry with the greens. To get the stir fry just right you need to add some crunch. This has been accomplished with the addition of sugar snap peas (in season now - and they crisp up so nicely when lightly stir fried), carrots (not in season but still reasonably priced for an organic produce at the supermarket) or almonds. Greens in a stir fry preparation have been my go-to the night before CSA pick-up the last few weeks. It is a great way to use up the last of those greens and it seems to satisfy most palates around here.