How to Keep Recipes Organized in a Country Kitchen

By Lois Hoffman
Published on February 18, 2022
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Lois Hoffman
The recipe box is perhaps the hardest thing in the house to keep organized.

We all have projects that have been on the back burner for a while. It’s like we want them done, we just don’t necessarily want to do them. This past week I tackled one of those projects, organizing my recipes. Ugh.

I daresay that most everyone who cooks, bakes, or generally spends time in the kitchen has my problem. There is the proverbial recipe box with recipe cards all alphabetized neatly inside. And then there are those scraps of paper and napkins with recipes scribbled on them, recipes in my Facebook saves, those bookmarked from the Internet, pages ripped out of magazines and a couple family favorites tucked inside the family Bible as well as some more tucked in some other unique places.

I know pretty much where to find each and every recipe, but how in the world do I put them in some kind of order that someone else could find one in my kitchen?

This project has been on my to-do list for a few years for one primary reason: I wanted the special family hand-me-downs and the ones that are my staples in a secure place so that in case of fire or some other catastrophe, they would be preserved. So, after working pretty steadily for four days this past week, I came up with a plan that works for me. Maybe it will help some of you who are as exasperated at this task as I was.

Scan Recipes and Save Them in a Hard Drive

I started out with my small recipe box that had the ones that I use most often. I scanned each one into the computer and put them in a folder named “saved recipes.” Of course, there were some recipes tucked in among the favorites that I had planned to make and never got around to it. If they were ones that I thought I would make, I scanned them in. Some were from years ago, and our tastes have changed in the meantime so, if they no longer looked like ones I would use, they got pitched.

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