How Do You Keep Up With Recipes--- Sorta OT

Chubbs · February 28

Over the past few years, I have been overwhelmed with great egg recipes. Some I make up and some I graciously "borrow". The problem is, I never write down what I do, and I rarely measure ingredients. I cook more on feel. That said, curious how most keep up with recipes. I know some blog which could be my solution. Do others just flag recipes on the forum (and risk them being erased like Hapster's), have recipe notebooks, create a word document, keep everything in their head, surf the internet every time they cook, have a grease covered/smoke smelling "black book" that follows you from prep work in the kitchen to hanging with the egg, etc?

I need to start saving recipes so I can repeat my success, but would like to do it in an organized way. I would appreciate the input.

Eggcelsior · February 28

phone app. Called "My Cookbook" on droid. I can copy and paste text or the url from a website and it saves it under whatever I title it. Allows me to add notes as well. I also bookmark on the forum and have saved stuff from sites like Cooked Illustrated. For the ones I use the most, I put in my phone. I mostly use the recipes as shopping lists, I can typically remember everything off the top of my head.

chainsaw19 · February 28

I use Evernote, similar to Eggcelsiors solution, but allows me to add keywords so I can sort by ingredients very easily. I dont keep up with it as much as I would like so in the meantime I do have a lot of links bookmarked and/or flagged.

Dave in Florida · February 28

I'm the save a bookmark and copy to a word document and save it on my hard drive.

Chubbs · February 28

Forgot to mention, I would like to share this "method" with friends and family....

six_egg · February 28

I have just started trying a digital Big Grren Egg cook book. I use blogs, forums and some of my own. I do a copy patse to word or Power Point. If I can print it, I print then scan it to a PDF. I then store the PDf in the cookbook. I have catagories also. Basically it is a folder with sub folders in it. I hope this helps.

Chubbs · February 28

six_egg said:

I have just started trying a digital Big Grren Egg cook book. I use blogs, forums and some of my own. I do a copy patse to word or Power Point. If I can print it, I print then scan it to a PDF. I then store the PDf in the cookbook. I have catagories also. Basically it is a folder with sub folders in it. I hope this helps.

This is kind of what I am thinking. I would like to incorporate pics of the cooks for reference as well.

chainsaw19 · February 28

Nice thing I didnt mention about Evernote is you can add pictures, notes, and once you have an account you can access from any computer, so if you wanted to share with friends you could give them your userid info and they could look through your recipes.

fishlessman · February 28

black book at home, binder at camp. the black book is handwritten with some finished recipes that i work on from time to time and is stuffed with copied recipes that are fully marked up in pencil because i cant follow a recipe as written by someone else. sounds like i have a system, but theres really no system, my recipes change at whim because i saw a bottle of allspice or maybe the zatar seasoning etc or just a lack of ingrediants, i can tell you right now what i have for food in the house, can of tomatoes, can of paste, 2 cans hatch chilis, 1 can enchalada sauce, 2 3 ounce cans pastene tunno, half a box of thick spagetti, and a quart of very sour milk.... looks like hatch chili enchalada soup tonight
:))

billyray · February 28

Several ways, first in my recipe box on foodnetwork.com, then I print eveything in there and have a large binder by topic. I bookmark things on this forum. For cookbooks I made an excel spread sheet, that lists the book title, the recipe by type (beef, pork, poultry etc.) and the page number. This makes it easy when I can't remember where I saw that great rib recipe!

lousubcap · February 28

I'm with DaveinFlorida pretty much-have a folder on my hard drive where I place the word document after copying the recipe. Have sub-folders for those cooks that have many different recipes/approaches-wings, brisket, chix, pork etc. Keep misc BGE lessons learned there as well. Simple so I can keep up.

dlk7 · February 28

I copy and paste into both my work and personal email boxes with the recipe name in the subject line. Allows pictures and you can search by key words through the email app.

Chubbs · February 28

fishlessman said:

black book at home, binder at camp. the black book is handwritten with some finished recipes that i work on from time to time and is stuffed with copied recipes that are fully marked up in pencil because i cant follow a recipe as written by someone else. sounds like i have a system, but theres really no system, my recipes change at whim because i saw a bottle of allspice or maybe the zatar seasoning etc or just a lack of ingrediants, i can tell you right now what i have for food in the house, can of tomatoes, can of paste, 2 cans hatch chilis, 1 can enchalada sauce, 2 3 ounce cans pastene tunno, half a box of thick spagetti, and a quart of very sour milk.... looks like hatch chili enchalada soup tonight
:))

Nice, like your style. That has been my method for so long too. I like to think I have a great memory, but still want to simplify. We entertain a lot and people constantly ask for recipes and I cant ever provide them. So, I am looking for something electronic so I can make updates, upload photos, view wherever I am, etc.

Chubbs · February 28

chainsaw19 said:

Nice thing I didnt mention about Evernote is you can add pictures, notes, and once you have an account you can access from any computer, so if you wanted to share with friends you could give them your userid info and they could look through your recipes.

Is there a version compatible with Apple products and Windows? Or, do you have to decide which??

chainsaw19 · February 28

I

Chubbs said:

chainsaw19 said:

Nice thing I didnt mention about Evernote is you can add pictures, notes, and once you have an account you can access from any computer, so if you wanted to share with friends you could give them your userid info and they could look through your recipes.
Is there a version compatible with Apple products and Windows? Or, do you have to decide which??

I have the App on my ipad but access it on web from a standard PC. It is very easy to use.

gdenby · February 28

I do have about a hundred recipe and food blogs bookmarked.

But I started "clipping" interesting recipes from the net about 15 years ago, when the dial-up connection could be painfully slow. I saved them as plain text documents that can be read by any text editor or word processor. I've been using Macs and a text editor called BBedit. It can search thru multiple directories and files , and generate a clickable list of every line which contains a search term.

I'd like to eventually get a digital reader, like a Kindle, and transfer the collection to that, so I could have something on the counter while cooking other than a print out sheet.

fishlessman · February 28

Chubbs said:

fishlessman said:

black book at home, binder at camp. the black book is handwritten with some finished recipes that i work on from time to time and is stuffed with copied recipes that are fully marked up in pencil because i cant follow a recipe as written by someone else. sounds like i have a system, but theres really no system, my recipes change at whim because i saw a bottle of allspice or maybe the zatar seasoning etc or just a lack of ingrediants, i can tell you right now what i have for food in the house, can of tomatoes, can of paste, 2 cans hatch chilis, 1 can enchalada sauce, 2 3 ounce cans pastene tunno, half a box of thick spagetti, and a quart of very sour milk.... looks like hatch chili enchalada soup tonight
:))
Nice, like your style. That has been my method for so long too. I like to think I have a great memory, but still want to simplify. We entertain a lot and people constantly ask for recipes and I cant ever provide them. So, I am looking for something electronic so I can make updates, upload photos, view wherever I am, etc.

this is my other recipe method
:D sausage ball soup, from here i can make it easy enough
:))

jlsm · February 28

My collection is pretty much digital in Word. If I see a recipe I like in print, I get the digital version. My folders are divided in pretty typical ways, though I have a separate one for BBQ and vegetarian mains. I don't use pics. If I change a recipe, I note it. If I make one up, I add it. I have a laptop in the kitchen, so everything is almost automatic. I've added many recipes from this forum to the BBQ.

I also use Dropbox, so the files are available on any computer with an Internet connection, my phone and my iPad. I have many times decided at the last minute while shopping to makes something, and checking the recipe for missing ingredients is easy.

One nice touch is that I can sort by date, easily finding recipes that I added recently and want to try.

MikeP624 · February 28

I go with the old school methods. Hardcopies. I just print them and keep them in a binder. I like having a hardcopy of the recipe while cooking. That way i can easily write down modification and notes. Plus i am always nervous about having my phone, laptop or Ipad close to where i am cooking. I am afraid i will dump something on it.

yzzi · February 28

I use my google drive account and store them there. I can get it on phone/tablet/computer and even have it offline, ready wherever I need it (usually at the super market getting ingredients). Also love it cause I can edit my changes easily or add notes for next time. And then when someone says "Can you send me that recipe." I just "share" it with them.

r270ba · February 28

Man I cannot believe Paprika has not been mentioned...I absolutely love it!!! The only downside is there is no Windows app. iPhone, iPad, Android, and Mac. If this fits your 'world' then it is the best out there in my opinion. Built in browser for recipe 'clipping' is the bomb. If it recognizes the food site (and it recognizes a ton of sites!) then it is one click and the recipe is downloaded. If not then it is about 5 clicks to create the recipe (absolutely not typing at all). Everything is the synced to all your devices and you can share to pretty much anyone anyway you want.

Definitely the best I have used (and trust me I buy all the new apps that come out and still go back to this one).

http://www.paprikaapp.com/

BakerMan · February 28

I use a Microsoft application called OneNote. It's like an electronic spiral notebook. It is fully indexed and searchable (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/ ). I store the OneNote notebooks on my SkyDrive (free). My OneNote notebooks sync to three computers, two tablets and my phone. I can read/edit from anywhere including the cloud via web browser. You can also share OneNote stored in the cloud (SkyDrive) with other people.

While I'm cooking I look up info on my phone or make recipes notes and add photos.

caliking · February 28

chainsaw19 said:

Nice thing I didnt mention about Evernote is you can add pictures, notes, and once you have an account you can access from any computer, so if you wanted to share with friends you could give them your userid info and they could look through your recipes.

+1 for Evernote. I use it for a number of things, and recently started using it for recipes. I can clip stuff from websites, take pictures of recipes out of books, annotate the recipes as I try them, access them from anywhere (phone, computer, friend's computer), and so on. Its worked very well so far.

Bham_egger · February 28

I recently have started printing and using a 3 ring binder. I keep a lot of stuff in the notes section on my phone, but I want to have hard copies of my favs in case we have a digital apocolypse!

500 · February 28

I am using Pinterest, primarily. It's basically a bookmarking page with pictures, but at least I can break them down to separate folders based on catagories like Food, Drinks, Egging, etc. It's easy enough to copy and create a new Pin, even if the site doesn't have the Pinterest icon ability to save directly to your account. I have a number of recipes on FoodNetwork.com as well, plus binders, cookbooks, and things saved here. I have a Word document with drink recipes I've found or developed, and a Excel spreadsheet with Egging techniques as well (time, temp, setup, lessons learned). I keep those copied in my Dropbox account. So, I'm all over the place.

jlsm · February 28

The problem with using apps like Pinterest and Evernote is what happens if they go away? Remember the 5.5-inch floppy disks? Zip drives? If someone buys Evernote and decides to shut it down, you're in trouble.

daveyray72 · February 28

I am slowly working toward using Evernote, but I use a program for Mac called Notebook...It is published by a company called Circus Ponies and I think it is available at the Mac App Store. Notebook is very flexible and allows for clipping from the web, documents, email, ect. I have a few hundred pages in my cooking notebook with recipes, grill/smoker mods, ideas, cook logs, and other items. The only function that Evernote has that Notebook does not is cloud based sync as Notebook is a local file only platform.

chainsaw19 · February 28

jlsm said:

The problem with using apps like Pinterest and Evernote is what happens if they go away? Remember the 5.5-inch floppy disks? Zip drives? If someone buys Evernote and decides to shut it down, you're in trouble.

True, but you can print each note and have a hard copy backup and/or copy paste text to a word document. The general point is very easy to search and sort, rather than having to go through a bunch of folders on your PC, and as stated previously easy to access from your computer or phone or friends computer, very portable.

GrannyX4 · February 28

I use Living Cookbook. Windows only. Love it. I have so many recipes that I am able to print cookbooks that I give out as Christmas gifts. The 2012 edition had 80 recipes and was quite a production for over 30 friends and family. ;;)

pwg56 · February 28

500 said:

I am using Pinterest, primarily. It's basically a bookmarking page with pictures, but at least I can break them down to separate folders based on catagories like Food, Drinks, Egging, etc. It's easy enough to copy and create a new Pin, even if the site doesn't have the Pinterest icon ability to save directly to your account. I have a number of recipes on FoodNetwork.com as well, plus binders, cookbooks, and things saved here. I have a Word document with drink recipes I've found or developed, and a Excel spreadsheet with Egging techniques as well (time, temp, setup, lessons learned). I keep those copied in my Dropbox account. So, I'm all over the place.

This sounds like me. Care to share your pinterest info so I can follow you?

jlsm · February 28

@GrannyX4, that is fantastic. I would love to do a cookbook, but the work seems daunting.

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How Do You Keep Up With Recipes--- Sorta OT

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