my bright orange recipe binder

I love food magazines. I have a subscription to one of my favorites, Cooking Light. I get excited every time I get one in the mail, because I know I get to look through it for inspiration. I always end up tearing out my favorite recipes that I find, and I put them in my fantastic, awesome, can't-live-without-it, recipe binder. It's bright orange and full of wonderful recipes that I have made, and ones that I can't wait to make. It's organized and colorful.

The process starts with the magazine pages. I bought a bunch of sheet protectors from Staples when I got the binder. I put all my recipes in those, to protect them from spills while I'm cooking. I absolutely love gathering all my tools, plopping down on the floor and organizing the recipes.


Notice my awesome 80's baby blue carpet. I thought about putting all this stuff in my parents room where there are pretty hardwood floors, but this is the room where I always work on my recipe binder. I like to keep it real.



So I take each magazine page and cut the ads off, and anything else that is unnecessary.



Then I tape the recipe to a white sheet of paper. This helps keep everything neat and uniform. I hate nothing more than a page protector that doesn't have a full sheet of paper in it. Do you know what I mean? Like when you can look at a page protector that has a half sheet of paper in it, and see through to all the other page protectors that have half sheets too? Ugh. Disaster! That's another of my OCD qualities, I guess.



I also print out recipes from online sometimes, like this one. This recipe is for Chocolatey Raspberry Crumb Bars. It's a recipe that's close to my heart. This was the first thing I ever baked for Michael. I put them in cute white boxes tied with blue ribbon that I got from the craft store. I mailed them to his house, because at that time I was still living in New Jersey. He loved them. (Remember these, Michael? I love you!)

I also baked 3 trays of these bars for my sister's bridal shower. My Mom and I put each bar in a little box to give as party favors. It was perfect.



Of course I have tabs. OF COURSE! I love my table of contents.



If you don't have a recipe binder, you should try it. It keeps everything neat and it's easy to browse through. The tabs help me find exactly what I need.

Looks like I'm going to need another binder soon! That's exciting.