Entry tags:
Salon post: March 23
Welcome to this week's salon post!
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Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!
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Topic of the week
I am contemplating revamping how I store recipes (which is to say, something more effective than the tag in Pinboard I have, many of which are entirely too aspirational for my actual cooking time and energy, no matter how tasty they might be.)
So. I'm curious. What works for you when managing recipes? What doesn't? What would you like to try, but haven't gotten around to? (Both in terms of organising such things, and in terms of, y'know, actual recipe recommendations)
What I've been up to:
Just started the Donna season of Doctor Who (I am skipping some episodes at this stage, since I've watched the early seasons of New Who multiple times relatively recently.)
House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.
* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.
* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)
* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.
Useful notes
Consider tracking this post to get notifications of new comments. Select the bell icon (or the words 'track this'). More help over here, and more about notifications in general here.
Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!
Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.
Topic of the week
I am contemplating revamping how I store recipes (which is to say, something more effective than the tag in Pinboard I have, many of which are entirely too aspirational for my actual cooking time and energy, no matter how tasty they might be.)
So. I'm curious. What works for you when managing recipes? What doesn't? What would you like to try, but haven't gotten around to? (Both in terms of organising such things, and in terms of, y'know, actual recipe recommendations)
What I've been up to:
Just started the Donna season of Doctor Who (I am skipping some episodes at this stage, since I've watched the early seasons of New Who multiple times relatively recently.)
House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.
* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.
* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)
* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.
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I'm also still using printed cookbooks—mostly The Joy of Cooking, Fanny Farmer, and Cooking for Two Today (for values of "today" that are in the last century). A week or two ago,
ETA, in case that term isn't familiar: "google cooking" means I look at what ingredients I have, and then search for something like "chicken green pepper onion -mushroom."
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I have some cookbooks I like, but often don't remember to pull out (and right now, I'm trying to figure out if I can manage food planning a little better than I am to vary things better while still being manageable in terms of shopping.)
So complicated.
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I too have a RECIPES file on my computer, and a folder of tattered printouts of the most-used ones. This is getting full enough that it needs to be organized in some fashion, since paging through the printouts can take some time.
I do also use cookbooks from time to time, mostly two vegan ones, the first Marilyn Diamond's Classic Fit for Life Cookbook, which is waaaaay outdated as far as nutritional data is concerned but still very tasty; and the other Bryanna Clarke Grogan's Nonna's Kitchen, in which she veganizes a whole lot of family recipes from her Italian grandmother. She's a genius at making such transformations, as in her own way also is Diamond.
P.
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I have one other cookbook that's mine, and it's Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. It is organised by ingredient, and it honestly could be a kitchen witch's grimoire (it has nearly 800 pages it is a brick omg). My mum originally had one, but my brother took it when he moved out after my mother got a newer edition for a gift, so when I saw this one in a charity shop for $8, I scooped it up. She has a section on equipment, and a section on basics, and honestly, she taught me how to make a roux, so. I am very fond of this book, and I plan to explore it in more depth when I am taking care of myself for a month or so while the parents are interstate. She has some lovely recipes in here I would love to try. I do love that it's organised by ingredient, because I can just skip to what I want, and see what strikes my fancy.
In the kitchen, we have a bunch of other recipe books, and an index card box full of handwritten recipes and folded pieces of paper with recipes that have been printed out from the web and stuck in there for safe-keeping. I think I have a few hiding away in there. The box itself has changed a few times, but the cards haven't. Some are looking a little worse for wear, which indicates the ones we cook the most often.
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I more or less taught myself to cook out of Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen by Kevin and Nancy Mills (he's her son), and it had really helpful tips and explanations for how to do common things.
The recipes are solid (not thrilling, but decidedly food) and there's a nice mix of things, with appropriate tips as you go along that build specific skills I found really handy. (And it totally demystified roasting a chicken for me.)
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I've picked up a few things from the internet, and from just being forced to fend for myself more or less. Also, still living at home means I have plenty of opportunities to watch others cook, which I find helpful too. I think I would probably flail around a lot if I was suddenly on my own, but I would figure things out eventually, based mostly on my common sense of 'you like vegetables, just eat them, and then maybe some meat if you like'. Which is about as tuned as my 'healty eating sense' has got.
I do sometimes find it hard cooking for one, though, which is when I do most of my cooking. So I try to find things that will produce lots of leftovers, or things short and simple enough to feed me once. I'm still to find a decent '1 person meal' cookbook that doesn't annoy me, but when I do find one I like, that would probably be my next addition to my library.
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My problem is that I like batch cooking as a concept, but the health issues mean that a lot of the time, I cook a batch, and halfway through the batch, that thing stops being food.
(And I have a tiny apartment freezer, plus apparently things I have to reheat that started out cooked often turn out not to be food either.)
So, part of what I really want to do is get a better mix of 'this is a batch, but I'm likely to eat it' or 'this is a one or two serving meal' or whatever and have a way to not get in a rut about what I'm choosing.
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ETA: This is the edition I have. Obviously, don't buy it new unless you are made of money, but it is a book that will last you a lifetime, so even a used copy will pay for itself pretty quickly if you can get hold of one.
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If you want to see any pages from it before you buy it, let me know. :) I'd be happy to make a little flipthrough video for you.
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""managing recipes""
by which I mean I p much don't—either it exists in my email and is findable by searching that, or I have to go google it [again / for the first time] when I want to make it, or it's in a cookbook I own and hopefully there's a sticky note on it but probably there isn't!
I should fix this...
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Additionally, a person not appearing in my life had a horde of cookbooks with recipes that were never used. So I may be a bit contrarian in my wanting only cookbooks that I will actively use in my domain.
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What I want, in part, is an aide memoire for a "This is a food I have made and liked, and a method for doing it with things like proportions and how hot the oven should be"
Because yes, the 'all these recipes, none of which I use" is relevant.
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(I am better at observed heat with stovetop than oven, and also do less of it where I'm not right there poking at it.)
Also, I have in the past done more baking [1], and baking is much less flexible about "here, pour some stuff in in amounts that look right" than some other kinds of food.
[1] Well, I did make a nice banana chocolate chip nut bread recently. But there has been less baking than other times in my life.
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(Temps are a little easier, but still, I don't remember "is this a 350F thing or 450F thing" routinely.)
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I suspect the vast majority of Mom's such notations were added before the dinner dishes were dealt with the night each such recipe was first deemed a keeper.
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Here's 3 specific recommendations:
"Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique: The definitive step-by-step guide to culinary excellence" - fantastic technique book for French cooking. Very approachable - everything from basic sauces, to how to prep a whole chicken or fillet a fish. Includes some sample recipes but the focus is really on technique. Full colour, glossy, hardback in a solid slipcase. I found this one on remainder at a local book seller for $35 CAD. There's a Kindle version, but it's a scan.
"Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone", or, "The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison: A James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame winner, this is the definitive cookbook and technique book for "how do I cook and make it delicious?" alongside "Tonight's dinner guest is vegan, halp?" It's great for healthy eating, too, and will get you out of the rut of just a few recipes. There is literally no bad recipe in this cookbook. The "New" version of the cookbook is slightly expanded, more compact, but has no drawings/photos; you may prefer a used version of the original.
"The Cake Bible" by Rose Levy Berenbaum. Like cakes? Get this. Berenbaum did her PhD on baking, adjusting ingredients by tiny tiny fractions to understand the exact impact each has in many recipes. It's true that while cooking is an art, baking is a science; she's got it down pat. Follow the recipes religiously first; don't make changes until you're sure you know what you're getting yourself into.
If you'd like more titles, let me know. I'd recommend my Japanese cooking technique book, but it's entirely in Japanese...not sure how much good it would do you.
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But sometimes I don't quite remember how I did what, and unless it's in a book I own or on my computer (where I've occasionally collected recipes from my mom), I'll just try to remember how I googled it, or whether it's in a magazine cutting or something... Sometimes I bookmark things I find online. I should do that more regularly.
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Before grocery shopping, I actually take out gamers' dice and roll them to decide what I'm going to make that week. A couple of re-rolls are allowed. (I still kinda-sorta have plans to actually publish a cookbook with this technique someday, bundled with some dice. Why not? It's a gimmick that's fun for the whole family.)
As for organizing beyond that: 1. I keep my store-bought cookbook shelf small and thematic, so I can glance and make specific choices. 2. I keep my digital recipes in a folder and use "grep" to search through them for keywords like specific ingredients or names or places. It's low-tech, but it requires no fancy software and is thus future-proof. 3. Family recipes are still in dead-tree form because of magic thinking about protecting them from digital pirates or something. My most valued recipes get printed out, 3 hole punched, and added to the binder. The order is chronological (in the order in which I was exposed to them) because that makes the most sense to me.
Oh, an important note: If I make a recipe from online somewhere more than once, I save a copy locally, and sometimes print it out, too. I've been caught off guard by losing a favourite recipe from online often enough that I don't trust them to be there in perpetuum anymore. That's why I never settled on Pinboard or the like.
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...that is an awesome technique
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Some of the links go to recipes on my personal journal (which are aggressively tagged, e.g., food.cooking.stew.beef barley), some to recipes on
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It's a list of recipes, grouped by type (the two categories visible are "one-dish meals" and "pasta sauces") with letters with coloured highlighting to indicate details about the recipe. Examples include a bright blue F, a bright green V, an orange Q, etc. Recipes are listed in a bulleted list, with links to the recipe itself in most cases, and a few that have just basic instructions.
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For personal recipes, I tend to keep mine in Pepperplate, which is both a website and an app.
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For a while, I had a notebook of ingredients. Each page was the ingredients of a thing I knew how to cook, and cooked regularly - so it was easy to take to the shops and just get the things.
The other thing is, how recipes are physicalyl laid out on the page. I wish more cook books would divide ingredients by "type". So for example, "Key ingredients", "Seasonings", "Stuff for the cooking process", just making it easier to assess the information and make substitutions.
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*takes notes*
:)