Recipe organization x3 and a home made gift idea

Here's a gift idea for someone who needs some help with organization in the kitchen (and recipe organization idea number 1):
Recipe Binder of Family Favorites. Not only will the recipient use the recipes that their family loves*, but the page protectors you include keeps organized the new recipes they tear out of magazines. This is something simple and easy to make that will be used many times over. All it costs is the binder, page protectors and printer paper.  There are a few ways you could do this.  


1. Get a binder.
2. Fill it with page protectors.
3. Decide on what genres of food recipes you'll be saving.
4. Label a page protector for each type of food.
5. Add a few recipes you think they might like into a few page protectors to get them going.  Or go even further by asking them for some they may have laying around and organize it for them!


Now when your recipient pulls out a recipe that calls for chicken she can store that recipe in the page protector that is labeled, "Chicken".  


*Also, if you're giving this as a gift to someone in the family, you could include a page of "Family" recipes, ones that are handed down from your family.


Here are a few pictures of mine.

This is what I did with my recipes for many years.  When I was ready to plan my menu I'd flip through this binder first.  But for the past few years I've eliminated paper by setting up a private blog.  Here is an example of how I use it. 


Recipe organization idea number 2:
Say I find a recipe in my Cooking Light magazine that interests me.  I first go to the Cooking Light website and copy the recipe.  I paste it into a blog post.  I add "recipes" in the label box.  I also installed (easy to do) a search box on my blog.  Now when I want to search chicken recipes I do it at my blog.  BTW, I also copy and paste a picture of the meal from the magazine's site into my blog.  I am a photo junkie.  If I don't like the recipe after I try it I can delete the post.  If I changed things up a bit I can add that to the comment but I most likely won't see it so it's better if I add a few highlighted notes at the beginning of the post.


Another reason I like doing this is I can then take my laptop into the kitchen and follow the recipe from there.  I'm not even printing this recipe!


Recipe organization number 3:
Use something like RecipeNut.com where you can save and share recipes from anywhere on the internet.



Since I have been using e-mealz, I have not saved as many recipes because I know that I am mostly cooking with those provided meals.  I scrutinize the recipes elsewhere because I know I will not have many opportunities to try them out.  


I hope you can use one of these ideas to help eliminate paper clutter and possibly help someone on your gift list be more organized.


Happy Holidays!