Full in-box = Full tummy.

I collect recipes.

Duh!

Hear me out. For years, I have been collecting recipes by cutting them and pasting them into binders. Also by writing them on scraps of paper. My mother has done the same thing, and I know lots of women (no men - surprisingly) that take pride in their extensive recipe collection.


Then why is it that they never actually MAKE any of the recipes they collect? Most will resort to trusted, memorized standbys. I'll tell you why. Because even the most organized, alphabetically organized recipe card box is STILL not organized enough. You will never find what you need when you need it.

I 'd like to share my method of recipe collection. I've created my own on-line database organized my way with my own classifications and notes. I can access this database anywhere that I have an internet collection, and it's free and easy to maintain. Since beginning this database 6 months ago, I have collected 714 recipes, and have experimented with new recipes more than ever before!

Here's how I developed my method. Feel free to create your own online recipe database, if you are so inspired. It is time consuming, but it really is worth the hard work.

• Create a gmail email account. This should be totally different from your regular email acount. i.e. my recipe account is mickis.recipes@gmail.com
• Enter in every new recipe as a separate email, and email it to yourself at your recipe account
• Add labels to your recipes. This is where you really personalize your system. You can label your recipes according to cuisine, course, or level of difficulty. You can label one recipe with several different labels. Here are the labels I use: 'tried' for recipes that I've attempted before, 'healthy' for on-the-wagon standby's that I make regularly. 'Occasional' for recipes that I make to impress, and 'cheat' - exactly what the word implies. (see post on Smores Pie)
• To add notes to your recipe i.e. if you make it and want to note some modifications, you simply add a second email to the thread. It keeps the notes and comments together.

Searching for Recipes on the database: (this is what makes it worth it)

• To search by ingredient, you can enter the ingredient by entering the search field at the top of the window
• To browse recipes, you can sort a list by label. For example, if I wanted to browse through my recipes that I've tried before, I select the label 'tried' and it will bring up the list of recipes that I've pre-labeled 'tried.'

There you have it. I love my system. On a side note, if you're not using a gmail address for your regular email I can't even describe how superior it is to yahoo and hotmail.