How do you Organize?

[Customfan]

After a number of years cooking I found myself having trouble remembering things like:

Where is that recipe?
When did I make It? how long did it run?
What ingredients did it have? how did I make It?
Did I make modifications? Substitutions…. What were they?

I was wondering if you guys/gals have resolved your organizing conundrums…

Do you use a database? a log book, a scrapbook, and how is it organized? thanks!

Also….

Do you use a methodical experiment system when developing things like say… Bread? Jellies where you evaluate incremental Changes/improvements? :running:

 

[mr drinky]

If I find a recipe from a magazine that I like, I have a hard-copy folder for it and usually find it on the web and put it in a computer bookmark folder too.

If I adapt or create something, I usually type it into gmail as an e-mail, send it to myself and keep it in a recipe folder. That way it is always with me -- even on the road.

Other than that, I use Eat Your Books for all of my cookbook searching. I should start to use that more to keep my favorites too.

k.

 

[larrybard]

Eat Your Books looked intriguing, and at first glance I thought it might provide back door access to magazines, such as Cook's Illustrated, to which I don't subscribe -- but that's not the case. Only seems to indicate some of the ingredients for recipes one locates. So I guess I'll stick to my current, somewhat awkward, method of generally cutting and pasting recipes I find on websites into text documents and organizing them into folders (chicken, etc.)

 

[mr drinky]

Yeah, EYB won't give you back-door access, and it is rather annoying in that way because it won't even import free, readily available recipes from certain sites like Epicurious. It gives you some disclaimer that you need to 'own' it, yadda yadda. BUT if a blog republishes the recipe from an Epicurious source (Gourmety, Bon Appetit) they will import the recipe.

Anyhow…

The real utility with EYB is searching your own cookbooks if you have a lot. I can basically go to the farmers' market and see an ingredient I like, search EYB, and come up with a dozens of recipes that I can scroll through. When I find one I like, I simple locate the book and I am good to go. It is essentially a tool to use your own purchased cookbooks more effectively.

k.

 

[NY-Chef]

For on hand recipes I use a "little black book"/ pocket size address book. I'll make notes in it if I "Evolve" a recipe but never erase or change an original, that's one way I follow how a dish or recipe has progressed over the years. For work I put a printed copy of the days spcials with a print out of the POS sales report. So when I look back I can remember if the dish "worked" or not.

 

[CutFingers]

The honest best answer is use the old noggin...remember recipes like multiplication tables and things are much easier

 

[Dardeau]

I do what NYChef does. I have a little red addy book for every restaurant I've worked at. The places I worked the longest I had to recopy that sucker a few times as they wore out. We also keep a computer file with the MS publisher setup for each shifts specials.

 

[Clarence]

Other than that, I use Eat Your Books for all of my cookbook searching. I should start to use that more to keep my favorites too.
k.

This Eat Your Books thing sounds fantastic. Thanks! I've been relying on hastily typed notes in my online email client.