Family Cookbook

I love to try out new recipes.  I have accumulated such a collection of ones to try, that I created a recipe binder to help organize them.  You can see how I did that here - Recipe Binder.

What I need now is an organized way to store my families favorite recipes.  The ones that I go to on a weekly basis because we love them so much.  I decided to create a family cookbook.

I set it all up in Microsoft Word.  I have a title page and title pages dividing up the different sections - Breakfast, Appetizers / Snacks, Soups, Dinners, and Desserts.  I then created a standard layout for each recipe.

I typed each recipe up in the appropriate section and printed it all out.  I placed the pages in page protectors before putting them in the binder.  I liked this idea because I can pull the page out of the binder when I need the recipe and it will be wipe-able if I happen to get the recipe itself dirty while cooking.

As we try different recipes out, if it is a family hit after making it a couple of times, I open up the cookbook on my computer and add it to the cookbook.  I only have to print out the page with the new recipe on it and then replace the old one with the new one in the binder.

I think this binder system better than a recipe box because it is easier to keep the recipes organized in categories.  If it falls off the shelf or a two-year old gets a hold of it, it can't be dumped all over the floor and have to be reorganized again :)  I also don't have to worry about having to find new recipe cards that I like or that will fit into my particular recipe box.

How do you organize all of your recipes?