the nearness

So tonight I had my 2nd food disaster of the week. Of the week. Don't ask. But it made me realize that my current method of gathering/collecting/storing/using recipes isn't working. I have a great system, which I put in place a few years ago, it was just a little outdated for my kitchen. Let me explain...

A few years ago I gathered all of my recipes from all of my favorite cookbooks, magazines, post it notes, friends, etc. and put them into a notebook. It's a great notebook which took me quite a while to create, once I came up with templates, page protectors, etc. The only problem is that I gathered every good recipe along with recipes I thought might be good. So when I would look through my notebook, I really didn't use or cook about half of them. And what's the point of having a customized cookbook if it's not what you really cook? 

We recently sold my car. My beloved husband takes me grocery shopping once a week, on Mondays. As long as I'm organized, it works out well. But I always leave my grocery list/meal planning until late Sunday night or early Monday morning. And my notebook was filled with too many recipes I didn't use to really be a good resource for me to aid in my meal planning. So I would improvise, which is what I did twice this week, and ended up throwing away gross and icky food. 

An idea had been brewing how I could rejuvenate my notebook and tonight's disaster inspired me to take action...

First I started by throwing out all the recipes in my notebook which either I didn't REALLY love or hadn't cooked in the past year. I threw away at least a quarter of my recipes, which was very liberating. 

Second, I created a sort of table of contents for my notebook. A list of all the recipes I would make on a week night. This will be so helpful because my notebook has not just everyday meals in them but also recipes for special occasions, holidays, etc. So when it is time for me to plan out my meals, I can now go to my list and pull recipes from there. This will prevent improvising disasters like tonight as well as cooking in a rut. Which I'm really afraid I'll do-you know, cook the same 5 or 6 meals over and over? 

Then, my favorite part, I started looking through some cooking magazines, to add new recipes back into my notebook and onto that table of contents. I love looking through magazines for fresh, new recipes! I was able to add about 20 or so new recipes into my notebook, ones I know I'll cook. 

My end result is a sleeker, better notebook with a whole list of new ideas just waiting for me to cook!!