bugshaw | Recipe Sorting

I have a huge heap of bits of paper with recipes (tried/not, clippings from newspapers, scribbled notes, multiple-dish dinner party menus, 30x30cm to 2x3cm etc) and I could do with sorting them into some useable format. Can anyone recommend a system? I'm not averse to typing things into computer (but that would take ages), or pasting things into a book (except where clippings are double-sided). Hard-bound book? Loose-leaf ring binder? I'd like some sort of index to help me find things - maybe by categories like dairy-free-ness, calorie count, course (starter, main, dessert), cuisine (Chinese, Indian, Spanish etc), or ingredient. I would like to store information on calories and suitability for restricted diets (no dairy, no gluten, veggie, vegan).

This must be a solved problem - would anyone like to suggest something that might work? Or suck air through their teeth and say "You don't want to do it like that..." Or just tell me I'm doomed to have an ever-increasing unsorted heap? Or tell me to declutter and chuck the whole lot out - it's not like I can't cook and don't have a decent collection of recipe books already...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd seriously consider scanning as many as you think you'll ever use (possibly with some good OCR software so you can extract the ingredients list for future sorting) and getting rid of those and as many of the unscanned ones as possible ... I'm starting my decluttering as part of my "new year/new life" project.

And then there are many computer based systems for documentation management (even some free ones!)

Darn you, Chris, I was just about to suggest scanning. Best to keep a back-up if any of it's really important.

And me! I know someone who did exactly that with one of those little pencil scanners. Much easier than sticking everthing on a flat plate scanner.

Hmm, documentation management - I could write/paste each thing to keep onto a piece of A4 paper, each page consecutively numbered, put them in a ring binder, and then create an electronic index listing:
page number, name of dish, flags for restricted diet, calorie count etc, maybe a few ingredients
I could search the index (easy to update) for recipes, then just turn to the page in the ring binder.
Setting up useful fields in the index will be key.

This might work. I could scan stuff in at some future point, but I often prefer working with paper.

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All it needs is a voice synth (with selectable Delia/Worrall/Ainsley/Gordon(rated 18) voices) to talk you through preparing a meal. It could even suggest options based on what is going out of date in your fridge!

Or a paper scrapbook, which might be slightly cheaper (big grin!)

You're scaring me. You made that up, didn't you?

with a set of cardboard dividers to act as an index, large enough things just got punched and put in, smaller things got stuck to lined paper (which could also be used for annotating them with whatever information you want) - if double sided, just stick down the left side so you can fold them over.

Me I use a hardback notebook, but I don't collect as many recipes as her.

The alternative is to get some dedicated recipe software, which does exist but then you need to print the darn things out to use them (or have a computer/PDA in the kitchen, never a good idea) and you're committed to moving them forward through computer/software changes. And recipes are used in the databases area as an example of the sort of semi-structured data it's pretty much impossible to get well-defined (in other words how you want to use them is never the same way as the next person wants to).

This is the sort of thing that brings out my luddite tendencies...

Yes, I also use a hardback notebook for my most frequently used - I also copy key recipes out of books into it so that when I go on OUSFG holidays etc I have everything I might want in one small book. If you've got loads then ring-binder is probably the way to go.
Two major points in favour of the Luddite approach are a) cutting and pasting can be done while watching telly, unlike typing or (probably) scanning and hence is a less free-time-consuming job.
b) you probably have quite a lot of random info about the most frequently used recipes already stored in your wetware (eg From Guardian, slightly stained, in mother's handwriting, on back of brown envelope) and therefore once you've got it into some sort of order, even the vaguest filing system (starters, meat, fish, veg, puddings, misc) will narrow it down enough for you to scan through for the relevant typeface. If you scan or retype then all that lovely information will be lost, and you'll probably have to do a proper index job (or, more likely, start to do a proper index job and then lose interest a third of the way through).

Lots of agreeing.

I rely heavily on my mother's loose-leaf cookbook, which she has in Wordperfect on her computer, and has indexed by category in the hard copy. I'm sure there is software out there. You should be able to do it with a good database program, but setting it up would be a real bear.

I'd bin them and use the web for recipies. I just type in 'celeriac, recipe' these days and see what comes up.

I wonder if a looseleaf binder, with section dividers might be best bet -- with small clippings inside those plastic page thingies? I should give it a try with my own accumulation which at present is stuffed into three manilla folders: one for meat meals, one for veggie meals, the third for sweets and baking. The only cuttings I actually look at (except when the accumulation has got out of hand and needs re-sorting out) are those I've tucked into an appropriate recipe book.

The only cuttings I actually look at (except when the accumulation has got out of hand and needs re-sorting out) are those I've tucked into an appropriate recipe book.

This is actually my solution..

This would be my suggestion. Plus if you try something and it is rubbish you just bin the cutting and use the plastic again. My recipes are in a folder in my filing cabinet at the moment - I've not got enough to make filing worthwhile.

Really important recipes (my favourite bread one, the roasted tomato one) are stuck on the fridge.

Recipe Sorting

Declutter and chuck ... well, maybe!

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what my mother used was a loose-leaf ring binder

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