651103 Wed Sep 09 06:40:32 -0700 2009 19 29 Not About Food 0 5015816 When someone on Chowhound (or elsewhere) mentions a recipe you want to try, how do you make a note or keep track of that? It's one thing if the comment is in a COTM thread, that's easy to find later, but how do you keep track of mentions in other kinds of threads? For instance, in this thread about which cookbooks to try, several people have made recommendations for specific recipes to try from The Silver Palate Books. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/650486#5015588 http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/650486#5015683 http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/650486#5015703 http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/650486#5015747 I've bookmarked the thread, of course, but even so, I am not convinced I'll be able to find these recs when the time comes. How would you track these so, next time you pick up The Silver Palate, you know which recipes are good? ~TDQ Wed Sep 09 06:40:32 -0700 2009 12005 The Dairy Queen 1 5016103 Lol, I have that same problem! i'll be watching..... I'm starting to think about setting up a whiteboard for such purposes Wed Sep 09 08:35:26 -0700 2009 5015816 285186 Popkin 1 5017862 I use those sticky flag things to mark recipes that I want to try in a book. When I'm actually cooking from the book, I move the flags of the recipes I'm making that day onto another side of the page (i.e., if all the "try" flags in that book are on the top of the page, I'll move them down to the side) so that I can find the recipes I'm making that day. That's about all I do though, and that usually is more a function of flipping through the book myself and marking recipes. Usually if it's abook that's been discussed on the HC board, I'll "recognize" the recipe as one others recommended. Hope that helps .... P.S. I'm terrible about using favorites/bookmarks of CH threads. Wed Sep 09 17:53:39 -0700 2009 5015816 10985 MMRuth 1 5017879 Unfortunately, I don't. I try, I try, but I do lose track. I have stacks of cookbooks that I'm currently working on, a stack that I want to look through when the seasons change, and a "sometime" stack. Not terribly efficient. Wed Sep 09 18:01:55 -0700 2009 5015816 11995 pikawicca 1 5017918 When a new cookbook arrives in my house and I have a chance to thumb through it I go page by page and when I come to a recipe that looks interesting to me I list it on a piece of 3-ring paper with page number and title. Additionaly, I stick a colored tab on the page of the book which has its own code. Blue for fish, for instance, green for veggies.... etc. The title of the book is clearly noted at the top of the listing page. That gets folded in thirds to fit into the book to act as a bookmark. As I make the recipe I add the date after the recipe listing. In the case of COTMs when the month is finished the list is inserted into a 3-ring folder by month to be available for future reference. I have found this to be valuable when looking for a particular recipe we liked and want to make with the ingredients at hand.. If there's a recipe someone has reported here I add it as a favorite but if I want it immediately I'll print it out and add it to a 3-ring binder under a specific title. Wed Sep 09 18:18:12 -0700 2009 5015816 75332 Gio 2 5017929 Wow, Gio. That is some system! I might have to try that. So, to be clear, the piece of paper serves as a bookmark only during the month. When you're done with the month, the paper goes back in the binder to serve as an index of sorts, right? I like MMRuth's method, too. pikawicca and I seem to be employing similar "pile" methods. I like popkin's white board idea, except that I have no space for a whiteboard, at least in the kitchen. ~TDQ Wed Sep 09 18:23:49 -0700 2009 5017918 12005 The Dairy Queen 2 5017944 I hang my head in shame. Wed Sep 09 18:29:46 -0700 2009 5017918 11995 pikawicca 3 5017968 Aw come on Picka.... I bow to you for so many reasons........ TDQ: <"to be clear, the piece of paper serves as a bookmark only during the month. When you're done with the month, the paper goes back in the binder to serve as an index of sorts, right?"> Right.... Wed Sep 09 18:38:11 -0700 2009 5017944 75332 Gio 1 5019824 Back in the good old days I used to use yellow and orange highlight markers in the index. Yellow = of interest Orange = made (you can overwrite yellow with orange but not vice versa) I was also prepared to annotate recipes in the book, although some seem to think this was sacrilege. To me, a pristine cookbook was evidence of OCD. Thu Sep 10 11:59:38 -0700 2009 5015816 154622 Paulustrious 2 5019866 What's changed since the good old days that you don't use the orange and yellow method anymore? ~TDQ Thu Sep 10 12:13:16 -0700 2009 5019824 12005 The Dairy Queen 1 5020393 I have a very convoluted system of keeping track of my cookbooks and recipes I've clipped from other sources. First, I have separate binders for ingredients or courses: one each for meat, poultry, seafood, vegetables, pasta, starches. Then for courses: hor d'oeuvres, dessert, soup, etc. I keep a master list, separated by (alphabetically) cookbook name (with the recipes I like from those cookbooks) in the front of the binder. Behind that are the "loose" recipes I've collected, scotch-taped or clipped to plain binder paper. Those pages are also organized, either by ingredient (helpful for veggies) or other reason. I've also got a pendaflex box with folders for the same categories as the binders. Loose recipes go into there until I have time to put them in the binders. It sounds like a lot of work to maintain but once I got going, it's really very easy to find what I need. If I have an idea of what I'm looking for, I go to the folder or binder, and then to the cookbook as needed. The real trouble is I am addicted to collecting recipes, and have many thousands I haven't tried, and not too many reasons to cook anymore. Thu Sep 10 15:12:16 -0700 2009 5015816 14447 rednails 2 5020427 I'm impressed! Before I went on vacation I did a big clearing out, and that included pitching, en masse, boxes of clipped recipes that I'm sure I'd not looked at in six years (since my last move) and that I know I never cooked from. Painful, yet freeing! Thu Sep 10 15:24:07 -0700 2009 5020393 10985 MMRuth 3 5020458 I did that same thing last night. I needed several glasses of wine, however, before I dumped them into the trash. It was very freeing last night. This morning, however, I found myself wondering if I'd inadvertently dumped that great chicken casserole from CI or the short rib recipe that I loved so much but hadn't made in 5+ years! I guess I just made room to collect more. Thu Sep 10 15:38:00 -0700 2009 5020427 223367 nvcook 3 5020503 The cookbook purge can be cathartic. I went through a clean out - anything we hadn't used since our last move (also 6 years previous) should be given / thrown away. Unfortunately I was banned from doing the same with my SO's books. She has a visceral attachment to cookery books as opposed to a logical one. In the process I disposed of things like a pizza cutter, christmas cookie cutter (ok, I'm a grinch), half a dozen emergency beer openers, a rolling pin with handles, a plastic mortar and pestle, coasters with pictures of cats on them, skinny Italian serrated knives, number 2 meat thumper, grossly inaccurate kitchen scale, electric wok, fluorescent plastic chargers, the bottom 5 inches of the spare tea-towel stack, kitchen scissors that cease to cut after one inch, wooden spoons with black gas-burn rings, food processor with broken container, 200 elastic bands, 4.5 billion toothpicks, thermometer with broken sensor, detachable power cable for something, non-non-stick frying pan, 8 wicker bread baskets ... etc etc etc... I hope none of you out there are as guilty of hoarding such just-in-case garbage. The cookbooks were the most difficult; booksI had outgrown.The titles escape me, but things like "Meals for two in 30 minutes" or 'The Wholewheat Revolution". And I did commit heresy. I cut out pages from some cookbooks and kept them in a three ring binder prior to junking the rest. Thu Sep 10 15:52:02 -0700 2009 5020427 154622 Paulustrious 3 5027537 Thanks. I did a recipe/cookbook purge a few months ago, and was pretty ruthless. I went thru some cookbooks I had never used, (and probably wouldn't) and photocopied the few recipes I thought I would try. Into the folders they went, and the books were donated to Goodwill. Then, I purged the "loose" recipes. Out went the ones I would never use due to ingredients (i.e. heavy cream, since I'm cooking very lowfat/healthy now) or were too complicated for my simpler lifestyle. I still have waaay too many recipes, and will probably have to purge again in a year or so, if not sooner. I still can't pass up the odd cookbook I can get for little $$ (got one on maple syrup for $1) or one that just catches my eye. Sun Sep 13 20:24:53 -0700 2009 5020427 14447 rednails 1 5021498 Wow! Some of the CHers have quite impressive systems. I like to keep it simple and streamlined. If the recipe is on-line and worth noting I may bookmark it, but I'm more likely to print it out right away, put in in my "to try" folder and cook it as quickly as possible. That way I can determine soon if it's a keeper in an effort to try to keep the "to try" folder as small as possible (whether it's a virtual folder or a paper folder). If it's a keeper it goes into my recipe binder(s). If the recipes are found in one of the cookbooks I own I use a post-it note flag on the page, or I'll note the name and page number on a piece of paper that I keep folded inside the front cover of many of my books. Sometimes favorite recipes can be hard to locate, especially if your cookbook collection is large. I often make a photocopy of the recipe or transcribe it in word so I can put a copy in my recipes binders. But nothing goes in my binders unless it's been tested and deemed worthy of making again. Fri Sep 11 05:36:44 -0700 2009 5015816 139725 janniecooks 1 5022226 I have already been reprimanded for this by Alkapal, but here goes...I bend over the top corner of the page a wee bit as I read. I am amused when I pull out a book that's been around for a while and see the pages I've dogeared but not cooked from (and see what appealed to me at the time). Fri Sep 11 10:01:21 -0700 2009 5015816 13709 buttertart 2 5027388 I know book-ophiles get hysterical about dogearing books. DH gets upset when I put a book face down, for goodness sakes. But I dogear and I write in cookbooks with notes about the recipe. ("Excellent" "Omitted parsley", "Too much salt", that stuff.) What I once did was use a snazzy spiral bound desk calendar for a totally different purpose, noting recipes I wanted to try, by category, recipe name, book and page #. Remarks if I'd tried it and a line through if it was a flop. Didn't use it for reference as much as I thought I did, but if I was still working at the hospital, I might. Now I work at home and it's easier to go rummaging cookbooks or my own recipe scrapbooks (photo albums with sticky pages) for stuff. Sun Sep 13 19:07:31 -0700 2009 5022226 90114 lemons 3 5027991 I write in mine too. Fun to see remarks I made years ago. Mon Sep 14 06:18:11 -0700 2009 5027388 13709 buttertart 1 5026483 It's hopeless; I've pretty much given up trying. So I either waste a lot of time looking for things or I pull out a particular cookbook that looks appealing and just cook from it. I do keep a folder of recipes on my computer. And I know that a lot of my frequent repeaters are all bunched together in a couple of binders. Sun Sep 13 11:07:32 -0700 2009 5015816 324814 nomadchowwoman