Kitchen Reorg: Recipe Books and My Recipe Binder Revamp

While the Christmas season was wonderful for traveling and visiting family, it is good to be home and getting back into the swing of things. I've been able to work on a few more organizing projects, including setting some goals for this year, but for this post I'd like to focus on the near-completion of my kitchen reorganization series.

Here is a before picture of the cupboards above my refrigerator:

The plastic lunchbox was a Christmas gift some time ago from my mother-in-law who uses them to carry first aid supplies. A great idea but I am still considering how to improve upon it since the inside of the lunchbox is a disaster area.

In this post, I will be focusing on the left-side which housed a plethora of recipe books.

I am one of those people who has a hard time passing the Company's Coming display of recipe books at the grocery store or at Walmart.*  My collection has definitely grown since I was a newlywed. The downside of this is that they don't stand up very neatly. I finally found a simple, if unimaginative, solution.

*Incidentally, I don't buy many recipe books any more. There is such a wealth of recipes online! The two exceptions to this will be:

• Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
• Slow Cooker Revolution

After weeding out about half of my recipe books (I'm no longer vegetarian), I was able to tidy up my recipe book cupboard.
 

After cutting the flaps off of an empty diaper box, I was able to stand up the majority of my recipe books within it and shove it into the back of my recipe book cupboard. This way, they are still accessible but the back of the cupboard isn't wasted. I keep my recipe binders in the front, as I use them much more frequently.

My original recipe binder post was quite popular and can be found here. As is the way with most organizing projects, it was decided, after some use, that my system needed to be revamped.

The most apparent change is that I separated Breakfasts and Desserts from my Main Recipes (entrees, etc.). I also added some new categories.

My Breakfasts binder:

• Pancakes
• Waffles
• French Toast (New!)
• Other
• Muffins (New!)

My Desserts binder:

• Cakes
• Cookies
• Pies (New!)
• Brownies (New!)
• Bars (New!)
• Seasonal - Pumpkin (New!)
• Seasonal - Egg Nog (New!)
• Seasonal - Rhubarb (New!)
• Seasonal - Halloween (New!)
• Chocolate & Candy (New!)
• Dips & Sauces (New!)
• Ice Cream (New!)
• Beverages
• Other

My Main Recipes binder has a few extra categories as well. Pasta was split into its own categories and most of the Entrees had a Slow Cooker tab added.

• Menu Planning
• Pasta - Mac & Cheese (New!)
• Pasta - Beef (New!)
• Pasta - Slow Cooker (New!)
• Pasta - Other (New!)
• Beef
• Beef - Slow Cooker (New!)
• Poultry
• Poultry - Slow Cooker (New!)
• Pork
• Pork - Slow Cooker (New!)
• Vegetarian
• Other (sausage, tuna, etc.)

As I did last time, I have included a short video of my binder organization.  ;)(It sounds as though I have a lisp in this but I don't actually have one.)



I'm linking this at:

Recipe Binder

This is one of the first projects I started during this organization kick. I finished it in pretty good time but then I wanted to add some pretty paper to the front/spine. I have TONS of patterned paper but I just couldn't seem to coordinate bringing the binder to my craft room.

Finally done! Well, I may eventually add a label (printed or stamped) but for now, I just like looking at the pattern.

 As you can see, it is quite a large binder. It has to be with all the dividers I have inside!

Each of the dividers has pockets! These were a fabulous find at the dollar store!

 Within my Menu Planning section, I have subcategories...

 At the beginning of every section (ie. Desserts, Entrees), I have a free printable from I Heart Organizing. I will use this to track "Tried and True" recipes from other sources (ie. cookbooks, my other recipe compilations).

My categories are vast!

• Menu Planning
• Breakfast - Pancakes
• Breakfast - Waffles (I need to divide out the pumpkin recipes in both of these breakfast categories!)
• Breakfast - Other
• Breads/Muffins
• Appies/Dips
• Soups
• Salads
• Sides
• Entrees - Pasta (I plan on subdividing this by meat)
• Entrees - Beef
• Entrees - Chicken
• Entrees - Pork
• Entrees - Vegetarian
• Entrees - Other (for things like sausage or tuna... I don't care for any other type of seafood)
• Desserts - Cakes
• Desserts - Cookies
• Desserts - Other (I need to divide out the pumpkin recipes in Desserts as well... love me some pumpkin!)
• Beverages
• Cooking Tips

I will probably further subdivide my poultry into chicken and turkey and all my entrees will have a slow cooker section. I like being able to find what I want, when I want it!!

Here's a quick video I did just because I'm a nerd like that!!



I've linked this up to A Bowl Full of Lemons here and to Delightful Order here.

{Edited to add:} I was featured!