Or stack these units

Here is a link that might be useful: recipe/cd boxes

I store my loose recipes in an alphabetical accordion file. You can find pretty ones these days. I don't think the box would work for me because I would just jam stuff in there.

LOL Sprengle1! I'm even worse...mine are either in a Campbells Soup recipe tin or stuffed in my main cookbook...I have to be careful when I take my cookbook out not to drop them all over the floor! I could really use something for organizing them all!

I also have a recipe program, but even though I'm a "techie", I find storing and handling recipes on paper more "homey" (or something like that!) I have, though, taken time to record my most important recipes on the computer (and backed up) b/c they come from my mom, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers....I don't ever want to lose them! They're a link to my past!

I put mine in a photo book - the kind with slots for 4x6 photos - the recipe cards fit nicely in them.

Then I keep that photo book with my regular cookbooks.

Buehl, You use the same system that I use! LOL I love going through a stack of recipes and I see my Mom's handwriting again! I didnt invent it, my Mom was worse at recipe storage than I am! LOL I would like to find a way to be organized with them though. Maybe the photo book!

like morton5, i use an accordian file.....i put the recipes in a plastic sleeve first for protection and then i file them my recipe type.....appetizer, salads, beef, etc.....instead of alphabetical....i think the box would end up being a mess....

I don't know that I'd even take time for the photo book! That is the most logical place. But to slide each recipe in...For all that I like things organized and in their place, that is a lot of 'work'! LOL You're good that you can do that!

My 'system' sits on open wire shelving right now and falls and slides if it isn't packed in tightly. It's a nightmare! If I pick up the stack the wrong way and it starts to slide I get a mess! Now that the wire shelving will be gone and I will have and need places for things, the thought of sticking the cards in boxes tucked away and looking neat appeals to me.

From time to time I'll find a few recipes in the cookbooks and of course it's when they fall out! Honestly I'd never find them if I kept them in the recipe book regularly!

Wanna know how mine are 'organized'? There are the preprinted ones in one box, the ones I wrote on recipe cards in another, ones I wrote on scraps of paper in another stack, and those I printed from the internet in another! I stand there and think of where I got the recipe and go to that stack to look for it! There has to be a better way, lol.

I know the photo book would/could be kept with cookbooks. Where do those of you who use accordion files keep them? Do they fall over at all?

I just finished sorting my recipes and put them in a plastic accordian file (6 areas per file). They were $1.00 a piece so that's what I used. I have them sorted by Chicken/pork/beef/appetizers/salads/desserts, etc. and put each recipe by type into it. Made a potato recipe last night and just pulled out all the recipes from the "potato file" and found one I decided to try. For me it was a start on organizing them. Just got a whole new kitchen remodel and moved a 2 shelf bookcase into my dinning area. All my cookbooks reside there on the shelves and my recipe files go into the 4 drawers on the bottom. Finally everything is in one place !!!

LOL!! Just happened to pack all my cookbooks and loose recipes tonight (hopefully moving in 2 weeks - eeek!!). I have so many different sized recipe cards and card boxes that I've been given over the years and have NEVER organized them all. I've got long, skinny ones that have been cut out from mags and newspapers, the funny round ones from the tops off of containers like cool whip and oatmeal! While I do so much of my recipe searching on-line now, I do love seeing everyone's handwriting (mom, nana, grandma, friends, old roomates, etc!)

Must do a better job in the new kitchen, thanks for the ideas everyone!

buehl and cooperbailey, does yours look something like this? :-)

This is not to mention the stuff I keep clipping out of the newspaper and mags that's somewhere in the living room...

There are some good ideas here that one day some day soon I might try (sigh)

Eliz

I have a basket, random books with random "inserts", and looseleaf broken cookbooks....

So years ago I decided that I had to start typing up the ones my mother wrote out on several pages of notepad, the shriveled clippings, etc. Then I started typing up anything I was actually going to be referring to during cooking, because I have too many zones in my kitchen and it's easier to move a paper than a book. And I started typing up the changes I'd made when they came out well. And the things I threw together that came out well (like my olive drab soup aka green sludge, which looks obnoxious but is really yummy).

Here's the secret for the techies like Buehl (from another techie who hates drudgery): Toss the programs. My recipes are in Word. No fancy gizmos to make shopping lists, calorie counts, etc., but the typing is fast and easy. Makes it easy to e-mail them to friends, print them out, etc. And in the end they're still just paper recipes that are easier to read than my own horrid scrawl, or my mother's beautiful, but impossible to read, hand.

Oh! Important to only do several at a sitting, and to have a conversation, TV show or other amusement, or the typing becomes pointless busiwork rather than a nice way to clear out yucky paper clutter that's disintegrating.

Which puts the printouts back in the basket--but the real recipe storage is on the hard drive.

Eliz, mine does-LOL!

I inherited DH's laptop and put all new recipes in Google Docs. It is easy to cut and paste for online recipes. They can be filed using any system you dream up, and the search function in google docs finds recipes using name or ingredient. I use a desktop upstairs and the laptop downstairs (wireless) or have access the files when I am cooking at my parents in another state. It works great and is easy to forward, copy and paste into the CF or print. I won't pay for RecipeZaar again. Someday all those loose pages in my notebook will make it into the online cookbook, too;)

Oh, I keep my grocery list in Google Docs and access it on my phone at the market.