My Meals Binder came about as a way to rid myself of all the loose papers hanging around in my cookbook shelf and near my baking cabinet. I refuse to commit to a recipe until I’ve tried it. {Committing happens when it receives the honor of becoming an index card in my recipe box.}
I’ve also added copies of my Master Meal List and Master Grocery List. In addition to these items, there are kitchen appliance warranties and demonstration videos tucked in the binder pockets. I also have instructions for making kombucha, sprouting grain, and a whole host of other things not found in any of my cookbooks.
Quite often, my meal list will contain a new recipe from my stash of loose papers. Rather than scramble about my kitchen trying to remember where I put that loose piece of paper, I know it is in my binder, anxiously awaiting my approval.
My Meal Binder provides me a simple and tidy place to keep everything handy and nearby.
Binder Posts:
Household Binder
School Binder
Meals Binder – this post
Schedule Binder
Blogging Binder
Hmmm now one of these I might actually use! I used to have a drawer for this stuff but my new house has 4 times the kitchen size with less than half the storage space.
I do the same thing. I often print out recipes from the internet, but I don’t commit to them until I’ve tried them. I also have a binder, but it’s bursting with recipes.
ok, so how is the binder actually setup/used. I have tried something like this in the past and it just became a big notebook of odd sized bits of paper with recipes. I would love something that I could flip open and plan meals for the month from…where to start?
To be quite honest, mine is messier than I’d like it to be. One way to combat this is to use one of those old fashioned sticky scrapbook pages or use protective sleeves. As soon as you know you have a good recipe, it needs to be moved out of the binder (or organized in a more permanent fashion).
I don’t actually use the recipe portion of my meals binder to “plan” meals because the recipes in there are recipes I want to try, rather than recipes that are tried and true. Usually I pick a few from there when meal planning, but they are not my main source of recipes.
Hopefully, that helps explain it a bit better. Let me know if I didn’t answer your question quite as you had hoped.
Oh that helps me understand how you use it and gives me an idea on how to handle mine, thanks!
Great idea, my loose papers are driving me nutzo!!!
And, here I thought that I was the only one with printed out recipes stuffed into the bookshelf beside the cookbooks!
I have a binder for everything else, don’t know why I didn’t think to do one for these – I’ll have to see if I have any more empty ones and get to it! 