How do you keep/organize your recipes?

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  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    I have been trying to figure out a new approach for a while now and was going to start a similar thread this week!

    I have recipes dog eared in cookbooks, clipped and saved in binders, saved on AllRecipes, Pepperplate, and Pinterest. All with varying degrees of organization. I have so many recipes that when I want to try something new, I am overwhelmed by all the recipes I have saved.

    I was just talking the other day about wanting to find an app to help with this, one that would help with creating grocery lists too. I would actually love if said app would search my various saved recipes and randomly suggest meals for dinner.

    I am definitely going to check out the Mealboard app based on recommendations here. One of the biggest challenges I have found is the initial set up can be quite cumbersome.

    I was using this meal planner a few years ago and based on my whining resolve from the other day, I decided to dig it back up and actually saved some new recipes and made myself a weekly meal plan.

    http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/meal-planner.html

    I also was thinking of starting a MFP group to share weekly meal plans - I like open diaries and perusing those from my Friends List, but was thinking that having a small group of people who liked planning things out ahead of time, wouldn't mind sharing their meals, might be something kind of helpful as well. Let me know if anyone here might be interested in that.

  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    joflo723 wrote: »
    FloraJL wrote: »
    I use Pinterest for ideas.

    MealBoard is my ALL-TIME FAVORITE APP and when I find a recipe I want to try, I can import it into the app (for most cooking website you just have to cut-and-paste the url and the app does the rest). You add your recipes to the day of the week and then sync them to the grocery list. If you have 4 recipes that use chopped onions, it will combine them all for you so you know exactly how many onions to buy! I've taken the time to sync up the aisles in my grocery store so the app will sort all my food by aisle for me and let me know how much I can expect my grocery bill to be! And no, I don't make any money from them ... I just love it!

    http://www.mealboard.com/

    Seconding both Pinterest and Mealboard. Pinterest is first step...kind of a, "Yeah I want to try that some day" step.

    Then when I'm feeling adventurous and I want to try something new, I pick one of my Pinned recipes, import it into Mealboard, do a quick grocery list sync, and the ingredients are automatically added to my grocery list in the order for my grocery store.

    I seriously use both apps every single day for this.

    Does MealBoard accept recipes from most of the Pinterest links, which tend to be bloggers and not commercial websites? I remember when I first started using Pepperplate there were only certain websites that you could upload recipes from - which kind of turned me off when I discovered Pinterest and started finding more and more recipes on there.
  • Onesnap
    Onesnap Posts: 2,819 Member
    Francl27 wrote: »
    I have way too many bookmarks of recipes on my computer. And yeah, it's a major pain when I actually decide to cook them, as I end up having to write it down (but at the same time, it's handy, for example if the recipe calls for 1 onion, I write 1 onion, then put how much the onion actually weighs next to it as I'm cooking, so I can enter it in the recipe builder later).

    I guess you could just print the recipes though, or take your phone or your tablet to the kitchen with you (but mine automatically turn off so it's even more annoying).

    Rather than bookmarks you should try the gmail organization tool (if you use gmail) or Google docs. You just e-mail the link to yourself along with some notes. Tag the e-mail as whichever label you choose (food, recipes etc.). It takes it out of your inbox and stores it for you under that tag. Do a quick search in that tag and you have it right in front of you. No point in using web browser bookmarks...too cumbersome.

  • AllOutof_Bubblegum
    AllOutof_Bubblegum Posts: 3,646 Member
    Usually my husband just whips stuff together without a real recipe unless he's baking, (he's a cook) but we do have a small collection of cookbooks, the two biggest being veritable tomes of both Indian and Greek food recipes, divided by region. Those are the only recipes he looks up with any regularity.
  • Onesnap
    Onesnap Posts: 2,819 Member

    I also was thinking of starting a MFP group to share weekly meal plans - I like open diaries and perusing those from my Friends List, but was thinking that having a small group of people who liked planning things out ahead of time, wouldn't mind sharing their meals, might be something kind of helpful as well. Let me know if anyone here might be interested in that.

    I'd be interested but I would not make my diary open to those not on my friend's list. It would be nice to share recipes. I don't do meal plans but I plan several days ahead. I would not have an interest in meal plans (we're on the road 2 weekends/month). PM me if you end up starting a recipe sharing group. Thanks!

  • colejkeene
    colejkeene Posts: 84 Member
    BodyByButter wrote: »
    For online ones, I love the Paprika app. You can copy in a URL and it will import the recipe into the app.

    I also use Paprika. Love it!
  • Alidecker
    Alidecker Posts: 1,262 Member
    I use Pinterest a lot. I pin recipes to different boards, if I try it and like it, it goes to a Pinterest board called Recipes I've Tried and Liked. I do print out the ones that I make often, for ease.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    Onesnap wrote: »

    I also was thinking of starting a MFP group to share weekly meal plans - I like open diaries and perusing those from my Friends List, but was thinking that having a small group of people who liked planning things out ahead of time, wouldn't mind sharing their meals, might be something kind of helpful as well. Let me know if anyone here might be interested in that.

    I'd be interested but I would not make my diary open to those not on my friend's list. It would be nice to share recipes. I don't do meal plans but I plan several days ahead. I would not have an interest in meal plans (we're on the road 2 weekends/month). PM me if you end up starting a recipe sharing group. Thanks!

    Yeah I didn't want it to turn into an opportunity to critique other's food choices or question their tracking, etc. I was really thinking of something as simple as (for my family this week):

    Sunday - Turkey Enchilada Verde Soup
    Monday - Pan Seared Pork Chops w/ Roasted Potatoes and Carrots
    Tuesday - Crock Pot BBQ Country Ribs, Shells n Cheese, Corn on the Cob
    Wednesday - Red Curry Coconut Chicken over Rice
    Thursday - Penne w/ Sausage in Tomato Cream Sauce
    Friday (eat out)
    Saturday (pizza)

    Then thinking if people wanted a recipe or more info they could PM the poster. It was really just another way to get ideas - but when I think about it, my issue isn't too many ideas, it is just organization!

  • EdieMac1981
    EdieMac1981 Posts: 1 Member
    I love to cook and fear if technology prevented me from it, I might hurt someone. My choice is a 3 ring binder with plastic page protectors (I am also a messy cook). If you have a cookbook with only a few favorites, you can scan or photo it and print it out so you don't have to write it. My binder consists of print out recipes, box labels tapped to copy paper, to heirloom typed (yes old fashion typed) recipes on typing paper. I have been at this for a long time. The 30 or so favorite cookbooks supplement this binder as well as my recipe box, my recently deceased momma's little green recipe box and a red binder of my grandmothers. Oddly enough I found the origin of some of my favorite recipes when I went through my grandmother's binders. I only knew them as Grandma's and now I know their origins. More than you wanted to know but that is the story of EdietheGourmet.
  • geckospot
    geckospot Posts: 56 Member
    Most of my frequently used recipes are in a Hershey's kisses bag tucked into my spice rack. On Pinterest I've got 6-8 separate boards for recipes. My 1st one was totally overloaded so I started splitting them up into Recipes - desserts, Recipes - Vegetarian, Recipes - sides, etc.
  • Jennifer_Lynn_1982
    Jennifer_Lynn_1982 Posts: 567 Member
    I save the recipes I've tried and enjoyed from cookbooks or online sites onto my Dropbox folder. I can access it on my tablet or phone when I'm in the kitchen cooking and I can add other recipes to my folder anytime.

    I actually share that folder with my boyfriend and my mom as well so they can add recipes they'd like to try as well.
  • joflo723
    joflo723 Posts: 119 Member
    Kruggeri wrote: »
    joflo723 wrote: »
    FloraJL wrote: »
    I use Pinterest for ideas.

    MealBoard is my ALL-TIME FAVORITE APP and when I find a recipe I want to try, I can import it into the app (for most cooking website you just have to cut-and-paste the url and the app does the rest). You add your recipes to the day of the week and then sync them to the grocery list. If you have 4 recipes that use chopped onions, it will combine them all for you so you know exactly how many onions to buy! I've taken the time to sync up the aisles in my grocery store so the app will sort all my food by aisle for me and let me know how much I can expect my grocery bill to be! And no, I don't make any money from them ... I just love it!

    http://www.mealboard.com/

    Seconding both Pinterest and Mealboard. Pinterest is first step...kind of a, "Yeah I want to try that some day" step.

    Then when I'm feeling adventurous and I want to try something new, I pick one of my Pinned recipes, import it into Mealboard, do a quick grocery list sync, and the ingredients are automatically added to my grocery list in the order for my grocery store.

    I seriously use both apps every single day for this.

    Does MealBoard accept recipes from most of the Pinterest links, which tend to be bloggers and not commercial websites? I remember when I first started using Pepperplate there were only certain websites that you could upload recipes from - which kind of turned me off when I discovered Pinterest and started finding more and more recipes on there.

    Sorry...just now seeing your question. There is a pretty big list of websites that Mealboard can automatically import from:

    AllRecipes
    BBC Good Food
    Betty Crocker
    Bon Appetit
    Chow
    Clean Eating Mag
    Cooking Channel TV
    Diabetic Living Online
    Eating Well
    Epicurious
    Fine Cooking
    Food52
    Food & Wine
    Food.com
    Food Network
    Food Network CA
    Kraft Recipes
    Martha Stewart
    MyRecipes
    PaleOMG
    Paleo Plan
    Simply Recipes
    South Beach Diet
    Spark Recipes
    Skinny Taste
    Taste.com.au
    Taste of Home
    Thermomix
    Vegetarian Times
    Whole Foods

    But any that you can't import directly from, it's pretty quick to manually enter them. You don't have to type them, just copy and paste into the appropriate fields.

    You are correct though...the initial setup is the most time-consuming part, especially setting up your grocery store aisles. Setting up recipes gets easier as you go though because each ingredient is saved with the location in your store, so once you've set it up once, it's there for future recipes as needed.
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