January - confessions of a recipe hoarder

I have a habit of collecting recipes.  Bad habit.
And then they would sit in a huge pile and I never actually make them.  Or make them and can't find them again. 

Well that is a bit of an exageration...it was more like:

I tried to have them in an accordian folder, divided by course.  It just wasn't practical.

I tried writing them out but I hate writing these stupid things out and they ended up being illegible chicken scratch with iffy measurements. 

I tried typing them into the computer on some kind of recipe template.  But I just hated doing it, I didn't like any of the templates I found - and thus, I did not.  They accumulated.  And they drove me crazy as I tried to declutter my life and simplify things. <------Good habit.

SO I sat down one day and went through them.  I gathered up the tried and true recipes and put them in a photo album. 

The kind with the sticky backing that holds an 8x10. 

This way I can trim the recipe down to a size that works, put more than one on a page and I don't have to write a bloody thing down!!   Except maybe little notations if I make alterations to the recipe. 

WINNING!!! 

Only tried and true recipes go in that album, which sits in it's cheery little spot in the kitchen. 

The pages can be removed to make the recipe and they wipe clean if I make a mess.

 (Ha ha *IF* I am hands down the messiest cook in a kitchen. )

Anywoo - off topic - yes, so uh then I went through all the loose recipes I had and purged the ones that I was not likely to make, or the kids wouldn't eat, etc.  We try 1 or 2 new recipes a week right now and my stack is dwindling, and I'm feeling rather empowered.  If they aren't a hit, they go in the recycling bin - if we like it, it goes in the album.

I still have a handful of magazines and cook books to go through, but it's nothing like the mess it was.  One a week I'd grab a handful and go through them.  And yes, I rip pages out of cookbooks then off to the recycling bin. I don't buy them anymore, I understand my weaknesses now lol.

I do however, have a serious addiction to the LCBO magazine.  I've realized my love affair with it has nothing to do with the recipes.  I've only made a handful of them, and they never made the cut.  Also, almost most every recipe has at least one damn ingredient that I'll never find in rural Ontario.  So why do I hoard them?  THE PHOTOGRAPHY!!! 

OMG, it is so beautiful it makes me want to create each recipe! 
At least this realization has helped me to part with them.  I still drool and ooh and ahh, but then they go to the recycling bin.  I'm left inspired to work on food photography - speaking of which, that's November's theme!!