The cookbooks should actually be used...

Smokemeakipper_3

I've just been rummaging in my freezer for inspiration for something for tea. I spotted some minced beef and thought "oh I could do shepherd's pie"... Again! But today and stopped and I decided there must be something a bit different I could do with it. So I went to the shelf that's packed with cookbooks and pulled down one of my hairy bikers books and started flicking through. As I did I realised there are loads of tasty looking things I haven't made yet, but I keep doing the same things!
So I've saved the pages of the things I want to make and am determined to work through them.
Please tell me I'm not alone and that others out there are as guilty of this as me?! If so please have a rummage and join me in making something different. Oh and feel free to tell me what you've made so I can get more inspiration!

PasturesNew

I figure that for every cookbook there's only 2-3 things you'd make. I therefore have NO cookbooks. Instead, I have a collection of internet-sourced recipes that I could/would make..... and now have a personalised, online, recipe collection, with lovely colour photos, that's searchable, has categories and tags ... and only contains things I could/would make at some point.

Edit: I just fired it up and there are 6 recipes containing the words: beef, mince.

Mexican Minced Beef Cobbler
Picnic Minced Beef Meat Hash
Chilli
Meatloaves in Minutes
Microwave Quick Mexican Meatballs
Cheeseburger Impossible Pie

I started my collection less than a year ago, it has over 700 recipes, that use ingredients I like/have or could buy, use cooking methods I am prepared to use and don't use any gadgets I don't have (or never plan to have).

mummybearx

Oh yes!! I do exactly this, same thing over and over again!!

I've got loads of cook books, including the River cottage Veg book I got last year that I desperately wanted as I'm veggie and struggle to come up with good recipes. I think I've made maybe two things out of the book

Smokemeakipper_3

PasturesNew that sounds very handy (and perhaps a bit too clever for me!), but how do you keep it all? Is it based on a website that you log in to or is it just on your own bookmarks etc?

PasturesNew

Smokemeakipper wrote: »

PasturesNew that sounds very handy (and perhaps a bit too clever for me!), but how do you keep it all? Is it based on a website that you log in to or is it just on your own bookmarks etc?

Evernote. Free - although there is a very generous bandwidth allowance that you'll rarely hit except maybe when you set it up and overdose on adding loads of stuff.

It's software you d/l to your PC, or you can do it all online - and you can then download the whole lot to a new PC/laptop in the future if your current one dies, or read/add to it online with any PC/laptop or posh phone.

There's a Firefox addin, so with one click you can add the url, add selected text/images, or copy the whole page. I tend to select the bits I want and just save that (cuts out annoying layouts and adverts)

Then you can create categories if you want and drag it into the relevant category - and you can create tags and add tags.

Search works a treat, as you are typing each word it's finding all records with that text in ... and you can click on tag/s and just see items with those tags (or categories).

e.g. I could go to my Cookies tag and my NoBake tag, which shows I have got 8 recipes that are NoBake Cookies.... then I could start typing chocol.... into search and find I have 5 recipes using chocolate... and then in search I could continue by typing dark... and find I have one recipe that's a NoBake Cookies recipe using dark chocolate and it's here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4629/nocook-chocolate-tart-

And now I might decide that cookie tag needs to be deleted really

On the other hand, deleting the 'dark' from search, going back to my 5 NoBake Cookie recipes .... it throws this up (also not a cookie, but nice looking) http://bahava.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/white-chocolate-goodness-aka-oreo-truffles/

So I get to wander around, add/delete tags etc until I see something I like the look of.

daisiegg

I LOVE cook books - sometimes I just read them for fun!

I meal plan and I have a rule that I need to make one new recipe from one of my books each week. I really enjoy it though so that makes it easier

PasturesNew

Oh .... and for your existing cookbooks.... you could even take a photo of your favourite recipes in your existing books and add those to Evernote and they become part of your searches, so when they come up in your searches you're reminded and you write on the note which page/book it's in.

I screenied a few recipes and was surprised to find that Evernote was searching inside the images! And, if it doesn't, then you can add a photo you take of the book page and type out the main ingredients so search can find it.

PasturesNew

daisiegg wrote: »

I need to make one new recipe from one of my books each week.

If I stopped adding new recipes to my collection and followed this rule, it'd take me 13 years to get through what I've got.

Good job I am happy to just look at the pictures

angeltreats

PasturesNew wrote: »

If I stopped adding new recipes to my collection and followed this rule, it'd take me 13 years to get through what I've got.

Good job I am happy to just look at the pictures

Oh god. I just did the same sums.

On the assumption that each book contains 40 recipes (although most of them, in reality, probably contain closer to 100), if I make one new recipe from each book it would take me about 230 years to get through them all.

And I still have so many on my Amazon wishlist...

I tend to leaf through my cookbooks randomly and take them to bed to read, and use them for inspiration, but I don't really follow recipes to the letter all that often.

PasturesNew

angeltreats wrote: »

Oh god. I just did the same sums.

On the assumption that each book contains 40 recipes (although most of them, in reality, probably contain closer to 100), if I make one new recipe from each book it would take me about 230 years to get through them all.

And I still have so many on my Amazon wishlist...

I tend to leaf through my cookbooks randomly and take them to bed to read, and use them for inspiration, but I don't really follow recipes to the letter all that often.

And you'll never make anything from your books because you can't find a recipe that's suitable in under 3 minutes .....

My way of doing it gives me an instant list of possibles .... could find and decide on something in under 3 minutes if I cared to.

daisiegg

PasturesNew wrote: »

And you'll never make anything from your books because you can't find a recipe that's suitable in under 3 minutes .....

My way of doing it gives me an instant list of possibles .... could find and decide on something in under 3 minutes if I cared to.

You seem quite evangelical about this!

Not sure I agree with you. I just counted and I have around 100 recipe books, plus lots of magazines that I've kept, plus my own folder of my own recipes/printouts from online recipes/cuttings from mags etc. I use my books all the time - my 'one new recipe a week' is a minimum and often it's more. You know which books are good for which types of things. All the books have indexes. It doesn't really take a genius!