jenett | Salon post: March 23

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project: salon

Salon post: March 23

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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.)

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I have a folder of "recipes" on my PC, and beyond that do some google cooking.

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,

adrian_turtle sent me a recipe she'd made and we'd both liked, and I printed it out, used it, and then folded the printout up and tucked it in between two cookbooks.

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."

Edited 2018-03-23 13:29 (UTC)

Google cooking is a great solution!

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.

I know there's a site designed for the purpose for which you use google cooking, but I forget what site it is. It is a good technique, anyway :)

Could it possibly be Chef Watson? Or was it something more...intelligent?

Preeeetty sure that's not familiar. I'll see if I can find it later. :)

I think I was thinking of Supercook?

I do a lot of google cooking too. Sometimes this results in my bookmarking four or five recipes for whatever I want to make, causing later confusion. Sometimes, too, I end up smushing two recipes together and not making notes about how I did it, so that reproducing a success is difficult. It seems to be very complicated for me to make notes while actually cooking, for some reason; I also have a touching faith in my memory that has never actually been justified.

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.

I actually made a recipe journal based on a tutorial I found on youtube, and I keep my recipes in that. I'm not a very good cook, nor an experienced one, but I put all the recipes in it that I can cook so far. I wanted to take ownership of that, to document what had worked for me, and to begin my own collection of recipes that I know I can make. Which reminds me I need to add in teriyaki chicken, because I cooked that for the first time tonight, and it was a total success ty Adam Liaw. <3

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.

Oh, that sounds like a great book - ingredient by ingredient sounds very practical!

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.)

It's a really great book, particularly because that's basically how I approach cooking. What thing do I have, and what can I make with it? (Also, what can I be arsed cooking? Because that is also a thing I deal with.)

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.

Cooking for one is so hard!

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.

I FEEL YOU

ooooo I want that book now

It is a brick of a book, but omg it is totally worth it if you can find one. She's an Australian cook, so IDK how available her books might be outside of Aus, and of course you'd have to change all her recipes to US measures, but it'd be worth it if you could find it.

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.

Edited 2018-03-23 15:19 (UTC)

:D :D :D

:D :D :D

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.

Offer v much appreciated :)

I'll get it done for you tomorrow. <3

Yay! Thanks

What works for you when managing recipes?

""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...

Reviewing the comments so far: I think I'm going to grab me a three-ring binder when next I'm at a store what sells such things. And a thingy of dividers for a three-ring binder. Scan a recipe if it's in a cookbook or save to disk if it's online, print it out, apply the three-hole punch, et voila I have both digital and paper copies, and I can organize and annotate as I please.

Recipes: I have a Dreamwidth "to try" tag! Also a tumblr one. >_>

The challenge with these is getting into the habit of going back and using them - I have the same problem with tumblr spells.

I don't really have a recipe book or organizational system...because what I feel I really need is a technique book. If I can learn how one cooks things first, I can infinitely recombine them into new and interesting things as I like.

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.

Technique books are great!

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.

The sort of thing where when the recipe says "heat a skillet to medium hot" you have a scrawl in the margins (or that crosses out "heat to medium hot" and replaces it) that says "turn the knob to 5 and let it sit for two and a half minutes"?

Some of that, but mroe "cook at about 400F for about 20 minutes, but maybe more like 25."

(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.

Oh, right. The sort of thing that might say "cook this for 13 minutes and then turn it around, because the oven doesn't heat evenly and you need even cooking for this" or where a recipe would say "cook for 25 minutes", it would add "check it, and cook it for 1-3 minutes more, depending on how under-done it is now." Those bits of wisdom you accumulate as you actually cook something and get to know your tools and appliances.

Well, and also, I just don't generally remember if this is a bake for 20 minutes thing or a bake for 40 minutes thing, and getting it wrong is not generally very helpful.

(Temps are a little easier, but still, I don't remember "is this a 350F thing or 450F thing" routinely.)

Several of my mother's cookbooks contain recipes (usually marked by sticky notes for easier location later) that have notations scribbled in the margins pretty much exactly as

silveradept says. If one is allergic to writing in books, one could photocopy the recipe and scribble in the margin of that, or type it up with annotations.

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.

I have about half a shelf of cookbooks; of those, I'd say 25% are technique based. (I consult the cookbooks often enough that you'd tolerate me. :P )

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.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll see if I can secure some copies, somehow.

I probably should get organized about mine... I've got a recipe book, and I've written exactly one recipe in it. :-P The only way I organize them is in my head. Which mostly works all right - I've got a good grasp of techniques and what you can combine with what, and when I try out a something new, I learn from that in the sense of "ooh, you can replace meat with quinoa and make delicious quinoa-beetroot patties" and then I'm done learning it, and next time I do it, I just do it from the top of my head. A lot of the time I just make up the food, like "I feel like something with coconut milk and shrimp, let's see what else I could have with it and if it's a pasta or a wok or what". Works out better with cooking than with baking, but I rarely bake these days. And most of my baking recipes are in my existing cookbooks, or variations of things in them.

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.

A few years ago, I started keeping a short-list of recipes I love to make, around 100. The list is a simple text file (written in Markdown) with references to the cookbook, physical binder/folder, or website where the recipe is. I rotate recipes in and out of the list from time to time.

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.

gamers' dice and roll them to decide what I'm going to make that week

...that is an awesome technique

We use

subtlehouse as a recipe book, and I have a recipe index on our intranet, with colored tagging for aspects that are relevant to us (can I make it when my arms hurt, will the household's picky eater eat it, is it veg*n, etc.). I took a screenshot of the index, since it's easier to show it than describe it.

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

subtlehouse (which has a much less useful tagging system and I need to entirely overhaul it at some point), and some to web links (but I mostly copy recipes into my journal, with source links, so I can note modifications). It works pretty well.

Edited 2018-03-23 20:50 (UTC)

I know I've got people reading who use screenreaders, so here's an attempt at description, too, just to save clicking over for that alone.

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.

Thanks for providing that! I'll remember for future images posted here.

Thanks!

We've a large number of cookbooks around here. My fallback/goto has always been the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, originally published in the 1950s. It's the one I grew up with, literally; my copy was my mother's. We've bought copies of the 1st edition for all three kids.I like it because it gives actual instructions on preparing food, rather than "open a can of ..."
For personal recipes, I tend to keep mine in Pepperplate, which is both a website and an app.

I wonder if that's the same one my mom has.

Looks something like this.

Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, 1t Edition

Nope, that's older than Mom's :)

I'm moving my recipes over to index cards. I'm moving my EVERYTHING over to index cards. I've discovered they are the key to mastering every task my ADHD makes chaotic.

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.

*is compiling a cookbook for reasons*

*takes notes*

:)

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Salon post: March 23

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