Recipe Book

Family Recipes

My kids might think I'm crazy but if the house caught on fire and I had a chance to take something out with me (as long as everyone made it out safely) it would be the family photos and my collection of recipes.

Throughout the years I've collected so many recipes that they are stuffed into two binders and an old metal card file box my mom left me. Finally I got smart one day and started putting the recipes that were tested and approved in a separate binder. That binder is like a bible of all the dishes that warm my family's heart. Many of them are from magazines I've read, others are adaptations of recipes shared by friends and original family recipes.

That binder is so special to me it will be listed in my last will and testament (as soon as I get it done-that's another story). All jokes aside, my plan is to give my son and daughter each a copy of the "recipe bible" the day they move out of the house. This way they can recreate the dishes that they enjoyed eating at home when they're away.

The interesting thing is that I stopped eating meat about 3 months ago so I could easily eliminate half of those recipes now.  My kids aren't strictly vegetarian yet though, I am letting them make that decision on their own. The rule is that meals I make at home and for their lunches will be vegetarian, outside of that it's up to them. Their meat/chicken intake has been drastically reduced so that makes me happy.  I guess I can hold on to their old favorite recipes for them, just in case.

It's very simple to make you're own book with all your favorite family recipes. I used a 1-1/2 inch 3-ring binder, dividers, and plenty of sheet protectors. I sorted my recipes by type like main dishes, desserts, appetizers, etc. Then I labeled the dividers with the different types of food and slipped the recipes in the sheet protectors back to back. The sheet protectors are great since you can pop out the recipe you need, then wipe it clean when you're done cooking if it gets spilled on in the process. Once I got this system started it was very easy to keep everything in order and I was ready to sift through the ridiculous amounts of recipes I've pulled out of magazines.