I've been writing a lot of food-related posts lately, huh? I guess there's something about fall that makes me want to prepare for hibernation -- by eating of course.
When it comes to cooking and baking, there's one thing in my kitchen I can't live without: our all-time favorite recipes.
I have a ton of cookbooks. There's a whole bookshelf in the kitchen full of them! But it can be cumbersome to go through them all looking for one specific recipe (plus it makes me feel insane when I can't remember which cookbook a particular recipe is from).
So starting two years ago, I bookmarked all our favorite recipes in the many cookbooks and dragged them down to the copy shop. I photocopied the ones we made the most, bought a basic plastic binder and plastic sleeves from Staples, and started the collection.
These aren't just any recipes -- these are the tried-and-true, all-time favorites. The ones we look forward to at different times during the year, and can't get enough of. I've printed lots of recipes found via Pinterest to add as the binder grows bigger and bigger, and added recipes passed along from friends and family. There are loose rules about what goes in: We have to love it (obviously); we have to have made it at least once; it doesn't have to be easy to make, but it does have to be worth it.
This system works perfectly for us. Instead of having to thumb through a stack of cookbooks before getting started on dinner at the end of a long day, it's as simple as flipping to the right page in the binder. (Someday I plan to organize all the recipes by meal: dinner, lunch, dessert, etc. How great would this be as a family heirloom down the road?)
The good news is, all the cookbooks are still there whenever we want to try anything new! If it's good enough, it'll make it into the binder with our other favorites.
A few all-stars included in the recipe binder:
Kristie's famous chili
Homemade basil pesto
Zucchini falafel
Asparagus risotto
Apple pie with braided crust
Pumpkin cheesecake
