A Little Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning feels good.  That is, when it's done.  Everything is back in it's place or maybe a new place has been found.  Things get moved around and generally freshened up.  This year, mine included painting all of the moulding in my house.  After six years it shows some wear and tear.  The same is true for my recipes.

Do you find yourself collecting recipes and stuffing them in a cupboard or drawer or even in the recipe box?  Perhaps there are some recipes you'd rather not make again or a stack of cooking magazines.  Take some time to spring clean your recipe files and books, too.  Here are some of the steps I take to accomplish this task.

Magazines:  I go through each magazine looking for the corners I've turned down.  That's my indicator that I like something on that page.  If there are no corners turned down then I quickly scan the magazine for any recipe or photo that catches my eye.  When I'm done with the magazine I set it aside to recycle by giving away to someone or just the recycle bin.

The Cupboard:  Yes, that's my place to stash recipes.  As I use a new recipe I'll jot a note or two on it and put it in the cupboard to wait for spring cleaning and it's formal addition to my recipe collection.  Gather all of these recipes into a pile along with those from the magazines.

Recipe files:  I use notebooks for most of my recipes although I still have a small recipe box for those written on index/recipe cards.  I bring these out, too, so that I can add to each of them.

By now I usually have quite a stack of recipes on my table.  I go through these and start separating them into piles: desserts, dinners, veggies and appetizers, etc.

I start with the dinner recipes and take a really good look at them.  Is it something my family would like?  How involved is the recipe?  I sort these into seasons of the year when it would best be served.  From here, I incorporate them into a menu from my once-a month cooking recipe book.  I will pull out recipes that didn't go over so well with my family.  In this way, my menus are constantly changing and being refined to the tastes of our family.

If I'm near the end of a month of meals, I may take a week and just try new recipes, also, before adding them to a specific rotation.  This also helps stretch a menu if I don't have a day to cook as early as I need it.

I will throw away recipes that I choose not to try.  Recipes other than dinner entrees get filed into my notebooks which are divided into categories, but that's another blog to write!