Welcome to day three of Getting Organized!

Today I tackled the second half of my organization system - the recipe binder.

Since we are trying to cut back on eating out as well as doing our best to avoid processed foods both for our budget and health, (never mind the fact that I just love food!) cooking and grocery shopping are a really important part of our lives. I counted last night and I have almost SIXTY cookbooks. That's not counting the little magazine looking monthlies you can pick up at the checkout stand at the grocery store either. I also have a TON of recipes saved on my computer and a whole bunch of different recipe apps on my phone. We won't even start to talk about all of the cooking blogs and websites I know or Pinterest!

That's a lot of recipes! How to keep track of them all?

Enter the Recipe Organization Binder.

I decorated the covers to go with my color scheme. Then I thought about what categories I wanted to have, based on the foods that we cook. For instance, if I had a "main dish" category, stuff would get lost. Instead I opted for separate Poultry, Pork, and Beef categories. Also, since we eat a lot of shrimp, I made a separate category for those recipes, then one for Fish and Other Seafood. Instead of one huge section for dessert, I have one for cookies, one for cakes, and one for all other desserts.

After I had my list of categories and had figured out the order I wanted them to appear in the binder, I made my tabs using the same procedure I used for the Household binder tabs.

Behind each tab is a page protector. In these I'll put recipes that I've clipped from magazines or other places that I want to try. I got this idea from IHeart Organizing. I used to to save these up and when I found a big chunk of time with nothing to do (HA!) I'd type these up and save them in the appropriate folder on my computer. The problem was that I'd forget which things I had tried and which I hadn't, or if I liked them or not. A lot of the stuff I spent all that time typing got filed away, only to be forgotten. This way, the stuff I want to try is right there, first thing when I'm trying to decide what's for dinner.

Behind the page protector is a cookbook reference sheet. Say I have some chicken I want to cook. I don't want to be limited to just the recipes I have in my binder; I want to make sure I don't miss anything that I've made from a cookbook too! From now on when I try a recipe that I like from one of my cookbooks, I'll write it on the reference sheet in the appropriate section of the binder.

That's my other rule for this. Only recipes that we've tried and loved can make it into the binder. This is going to be a book with just winners! I want to go through my cookbooks and add the recipes I love to my reference sheets. I also want to print out the ones I've tried from my computer files and add those too. The recipe printouts (along with any from the page protectors that I've tried and liked and typed up) will go behind this sheet.

I was going to put a freezer inventory sheet in there, but decided it would go better in the Household binder. I placed it behind the Meal Planning tab so I can see exactly what I have on hand. I'm thinking I'll do one for the pantry too. I based it on one I found on Pinterest that came from Organized Home.

I also made this finance checklist to go behind the budget tab. I got the idea for this from IHeart Organizing.
I decided it would be nice to have some basic supplies with the household binder, so I added a zipper pocket with a pen, a pair of scissors and some stamps. I'm going to toss some post its in there too I think.

Finally, I made a little label for the holder on the spine. I think this makes it done!