How I Organize my Found Recipes

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I really like to cook. I love trying new recipes. It is so fun to try something new and taste/evaluate it. Over the years, I have accumulated quite a few recipes from here, there and everywhere. I have had subscriptions to various magazines and so and so forth. My recipe file, it overfloweth!

A few years ago, I found this fantastic accordion file style organizer at Sur La Table. I knew the instant I saw it, it was just what I had been looking for to organize my recipes. I had seen notebook style folders for this same purpose, but they just seems so messy and disorganized to me. So, as I said, as soon as I saw this one, I knew it was coming home with me!

Hey and guess what, I just check on Amazon...they still sell this recipe organizer!! Yippee and happy day for you if you like this idea. It doesn't have the bow anymore, but probably that would be easier (even if it isn't as cute). You can click the picture to the right or this link to go look at it on Amazon: Accordion Recipe File

I have lived happily with my recipe organizer for probably 4 years now. Recently, I found myself a little frustrated with my lovely organizer. I have so many recipes that it was become a bit frustrating to find what I wanted.

I was inspired to change my system. I really get excited to try new recipes. I really want to start trying to cook 1 new recipe per week.

The problem is that my beautiful organizer is so full of both tried and true recipes and new recipes it was become a challenge to find what I was looking for.

I decided to use the $1 accorian file I had purchased for the girls to keep their construction paper in when I re-organized our craft area. (Don't worry, they got a new cute Hello Kitty file that was on clearance at Target...which they are in love with!)

I went through all my recipes. I made my pretty accorion file for my tried and true recipes. That will be so nice and so easy to find things I know everyone will eat. I also got rid of recipes that were so/so and that I highly doubt we will make again.

You could easily make your own accorion style organizer. You would just need to purchase an accordion style organizer with 8 sections. My organizer has the following categories, which work well for me:

• Appetizers/Beverages
• Eggs/Poultry
• Pasta/Grains
• Desserts/Cakes
• Soups/Saladas
• Seafood/Meats
• Vegetalbes/Legumes
• Breads/Cookies

I used the $1 accordion file for all those collected recipes I haven't gotten around to testing/using. The only 'problem' with my cheap accorion file is that it only has 5 sections. I decided to organize it in the following groups:

• Appetizers/Beverages/Misc.
• Breakfast
• Main Dishes
• Vegetables/Side Dishes
• Desserts

Look at all that yumminess in our future!

I haven't labeled them yet, because I want to make sure this new idea will work for me. If it does work, I will be labeling things in a more permanent manner.

Now I look at both files and I get excited to cook. I really want to try to make 1 new recipe per week. Maybe I will even blog about it here...maybe that would get me to actually do it. I have been saying I wanted to start this since the beginning of the year...well now I am organized and ready to implement. I just need to get in there and do it!

UPDATE 4/11/2012: You can read about how this re-organization has been working for me. I wrote a new post about it: Update: How I Organize My Found Recipes.

  

Crocodile Craft

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Snowflake has moved on to another unit in our Moving Beyond the Page  curriculum. She is studying Africa and Asia. The first literature unit that accompanies the social studies unit is Akimbo and the Crocodile Man.

We got to make a fun craft within this unit and wanted to share it with you!

Snowflake's crocodile

Pumpkin's crocodile

KC

Hello Kitty Slumber Party: Part 2

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As I shared with you already, Snowflake turned 10 last month and we had a Hello Kitty slumber party to celebrate.

I started with these invitations.

I got the idea/inspirations to make these from this site: Handmade by Odette. While they are simply amazing and I love them, what she charges for her invitations on her etsy shop is almost my total budget for this party! So, I used my wonderful 40th birthday present, my Cricut, and made my own. I'd say they turned out quite nice!

Sorry for the annoying pink boxes on the pictures of the invitations, just maintaining my privacy! :-)

Another activity we used that I didn't tell you about in the first post was a roll of hello kitty coloring sheets I found at Michael's for $1. I cut them apart and had them out on the table at the beginning of the party. I was really surprised that the girls actually sat and colored multiple pages each. Not only that but they seemed to enjoy it! I just put it out and wasn't sure if they would actually want to color. I actually had to force them to stop so we could eat.

Of course, we had to have yummy cake at some point during the evening, so I made a Hello Kitty cake inspired from this site: Squidoo Hello Kitty Birthday Cakes

I think it turned out nicely. My only dissappointment is that I forgot to look at the picture while making the cake, so I fogot to make the frosting the 2 shades of pink. That would have added such a nice touch, oh well, can't change it now.

I did order the Hello Kitty rings from Amazon as I was not able to find them locally and the price was less than $4 with free shipping (and I didn't even have to spend $25 to get the free shipping b/c this seller was just offering free shipping! LOVE That!)

We had another party with our co-op where I made some additional cupcakes. So, here is another idea for you if you are planning a Hello Kitty party.

For this party I made cupcakes. I used my Cricut to cut out the Hello Kitty faces. (Cricut Hello Kitty Greetings) I was resistant to doing this as I had made something similiar to this with the invitations and the time and patience it took to glue all the little pieces was more than I had for making this many for the cupcakes. However, Mr. T came up with the idea of using a marker to color in the faces rather than cutting out the little pieces and gluing them. You know what, it worked great! I only cut out the bows and everything else is done with marker. Once I got the Hello Kitty faces together, I taped them to a toothpick and voila, cuteness on a cupcake!

The cupcakes are just a box mix with premade frosting. I used my handy dandy Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to make the swirl on top (may my Easy Accent Decorator RIP, after I don't even know how many years of making me look like I know how to decorate a cake, it broke while making a valentine heart cookie....such a sad day!).

Tune in next week for my final installment of this Hello Kitty party. I will go over what we did with the pillowcases I made as well as the favor bags and one game idea.

Thanks for stopping by!



Visit My Other Hello Kitty Slumber Party Posts:


How to Make your Own Pillowcases
Hello Kitty Slumber Party: Part 1
Hello Kitty Slumber Party: Part 3

KC