piles

5 simple tips to tame your random piles of recipes

Practically every kitchen I ever organise suffers from the same problem: piles of foodie magazines and torn-out recipes stashed everywhere that someone has collected to cook. One day. Or for the more tech-minded, it’s magnitudes of screen shots and photos of recipes clogging up their camera roll.

Problem is, they’re collected faster than they’re cooked and end up creating little piles of potentially delicious foodie experiences that almost never see the light of day.

Sound familiar? Try this!

1. Gather all your magazines & ripped out recipes into one spot. I prefer to tear out the couple of recipes I like from a magazine rather than keep the whole magazine (I’ll never bother to go through a whole magazine again trying to remember why I kept it!)
2. Have a quick flick through the pile/camera roll and discard/delete any that you can’t even work out why you kept in the first place
3. Cull the ones that are too complicated or have an unrealistically exotic ingredients list for your comparative cooking care-factor
4. Choose 1 small plastic folder, slip or pocket to keep the ones that sound tasty and label it clearly as “Recipes to Try”. For digital recipes, create an album so you can gather them into one spot. Or try one of the many apps out there to create some order. Note I said “small” folder. A shoe box or bigger is simply too overwhelming for most home cooks so keep it realistic
5. All future recipes go into this one place. Once you’ve tested the recipe, either file it into a more permanent recipe folder or chuck it depending on whether you would make it again or not

“If you read a recipe torn from a magazine then flip the page over to look for and read the recipe on the reverse, only to flip it over again… chuck it! If you can’t even tell which recipe you wanted to try, I guarantee it’ll never make it to the top of your ‘must try next’ pile”.

little miss sorted

Don’t ever get around to trying the recipes you collect? You have two options really. Start testing them or stop collecting them.

The easiest way to make testing new recipes a habit is to pick a specific night of the week to religiously try a new recipe. “Try It Tuesday” has a nice ring to it but it’s more important to choose a night when you’re normally home and not rushing around to lots of activities. Pick a night that works for you.

And it really is that simple. Each week when you do a meal plan, select one Recipe to Try from your folder, include any missing ingredients on your shopping list and get your cook on.

Bon apetite!