Sunday 19 February 2012

Where do you keep your recipes?

There was a bit in a Nigella Lawson programme many moons ago that had an effect on me.  In it she showed us her mother's and grandmother's recipe books and told how they had been handed down over the generations.  She then proceeded to cook some of the recipes in the books.

It got me thinking, my mum is not one for keeping things or writing things down.  I learned to cook her recipes from watching and helping her in the kitchen and I have never watched either of my grandmother's cook or bake.

I am a sentimental old thing so after the programme I decided to start a recipe book that I hoped would be handed down through the generations. What started out as a lovingly handwritten keepsake has, over the years, become a rather stained book with lots of loose papers, post it notes and crappy handwriting.  I hope my great grand children will be able to decipher my scrawls.

I nabbed a book from work, one of the many marketing materials we use to get on a daily basis.  I liked the ribbon tie on it and the sturdy wipe clean cover.  See I can be practical.


Post it note and printer paper recipes.  


A print out of recipes from the Wee Man's dietician, recipes torn from magazines and some more scrawls on printer paper. 


A recipe from a Pret a Manger sandwich box! 


One of the first recipes I wrote in the book.  Written in 2004 and check out the neat handwriting. 


Recipes from the Big Man's Mum.  She wrote them out and my father in law typed and printed them for me.  Very sweet of them. 

 

I need to transfer all these recipes into the book but the thought of hand writing them all scares me.  I don't do hand writing, as you can see from the spidery scrawls.

Do you keep recipes?  Where do you keep them and what do you keep?

6 comments:

  1. As a wedding gift my mom assembled recipes from her, my grandmother, my godmother and my new husbands family. Its not something that I can add to, its basically a finished scrapbook. I haven't made everything yet, but it is so nice to taste my childhood when I am so many years and miles away from it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so lovely and will make a lovely keepsake for future generations. I really want to make my own notebook with handmade paper etc to store all sorts of bits and bobs in crafty idea's, recipes etc.
    One day I shall make one.

    Leah x

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a little Hobby Hollie book that I've had since the 70s and all my recipes are in that. Its good to keep these things.
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

    ReplyDelete
  4. I started a similar thing with the aim of handing it down and mine pretty much looks like yours, although I got annoyed with mine after I tried writing recipes in it and the wouldnt fit on the pages (mine had a stupid posh section for ingredients, method etc but there is not enough room so its now crammed with scraps of printer paper. Its easy to tell the recipes I use the most as they are splatted with food stains...maybe not sucha nice family keepsake after all! doh!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mine are stuffed into an old 50's recipe book. I've tried lots of other cookery books over the years but always go back to that one! I think that a hand written recipe book, although hard work, would look really nice.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I had recipes everywhere.

    So I finally decided to buy a large 3 ring binder.

    Then I used my 3 hole puncher... and punched every piece of paper with it... and place it in the binder. (Most of my recipes are printed out on standard white paper... my handwriting is lacking)

    It does look a lot like the vintage Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Which all the vintages one are based in a 3 ring binder.

    If the recipe is snatched out of a magazine, I will tape it on a standard piece of white paper. Then punch it with that handy hole puncher. And add it to the binder.

    It finally saved my sanity. For I did have recipes everywhere. And with them in the binder, I was able to half way organize them too.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...