How-to Build a Recipe Binder | 070

Published Feb 15, 2024, 8:00 AM

Isn't it time to say "goodbye" to the old way of cooking? Trying to keep your screen on and squinting to see ingredients in an instagram reel caption, if you can even find where you saw it... Sound familiar? Let's gather and build a recipe binder that works for you and your family in this chapter of life.

Looking for more recipes? Check out Recipe Club!

Follow Kelsey on Instagram (@KelseyNixon) for more great content!

 

Hi, everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription, the podcast you listen to when you don't know what to make for dinner. Let me paint a picture and see if this might sound familiar to It's five PM and you're frantically trying to pull dinner together because one of your kids has play practice at five point thirty and another one has baseball at six, and no one's going to be home.

Till like seven thirty.

You meal planned a recipe that someone you follow on Instagram shared, and you're trying to pull up the recipe, but you get distracted by your Instagram feed for at least seven minutes before you realize you're in the vortex and time is taking and you got to get these kids fed. So you finally find the recipe, but it's written in the caption, so it's kind of hard to follow, and after you follow one step on your phone, it goes dark, and then when you go to reopen the app, it's taken you back to your home feed, and so you have to go and find the recipe again. Meanwhile, your seven year old is asking if she can play a game on your phone because it's out and the onions you started sataing are now starting to burn. I will stop there, but I'm guessing that some of you have been here before. Cooking from your phone makes an already difficult daily task more difficult, or it can for myself for a myriad of reasons. I didn't even go into the scenario when you're on a food blog looking for a recipe on your phone and stuck in an endless scroll with banner ads and long stories, and you just want to get to the recipe next meal planning. The thing that has helped me more successfully put dinner on the table than just about anything else is cooking from a hard copy, and not only that, but printing out my family's greatest hits, the recipes we love most, the ones I make over and over again, and keeping them in one central place that I can quickly and easily reference when I'm both meal planning and cooking. So today we're gonna chat a little bit about my best suggestions for building your own recipe binder to hopefully make your life a little easier. But first, let's discuss a few recipe ideas you.

Could throw on your meal plan for the week.

First up, Italian bolonnaise. This is so yummy. This is really good meat sauce like, so delicious. It uses primarily pantry ingredients, and it is my My kids love pasta like, so they'd eat pasta for lunch and dinner like every day of the week if I'd let them love it.

And we have it a lot.

I don't know we have it that often, but we have it a lot. And my biggest concern in giving them so much pasta is that I worry about not getting enough protein in their little bodies, and so having a really good meat sauce or a boloonnaise is a great way to pair that pasta with something a bit more substantial. So I love this recipe. It is a classic. It's one that I've been making for years. And not only does it taste delicious, it freezes so great. And then I like to make a double batch. You know, I cook once and then I can eat it twice. When I pull it out of the freezer, I like to freeze it flat. It doesn't take that long to defrost it, and literally all I have to do is boil pasta and I have dinner Like It's so simple. So this is a really great recipe. If you've never made a bowlonnaise sauce before, it's not difficult. It's hanging everything in a big pan and adding some stuff and letting it simmer. So simple, great recipe, perfect for this time of year. The next recipe we're going to make this week is my Indian butter chicken. My kids love this recipe. We The thing I like most about it is it's just really full of flavor, and it's one of my favorite styles of recipe where I take basically some sort of dice protein like chicken, and I saute it and I add a bunch of flavorful spices and a can or two of something like coconut milk and tomatoes, and I let it simmer and I serve it over ice with really delicious bread like non that That is a formula I love.

I can do that.

I can do that with my eyes closed. And this Indian butter chicken is a great recipe for that. Bonus points if you throw some cilantro in fresh lime juice on top at the end, maybe some peanuts, Oh so good. And then at the end of the week, we're going to wrap up with the tomato basil soup that's got orzo in it and grilled cheese, so that tends to be one that is requested often here. Sometimes I'll even do it not as a dinner, but like as a lunch. And I am sticking by my favorite way to make grilled cheese for our family, where I make all of the sandwiches it once rather than one in a time in a skillet, and I do that on a sheep pan in the oven and it just works great. It browns the bread beautifully, the cheese melts just so nice so that it's not cold on the inside. And this soup so much flavor, like so much flavor, and the fact that you add the orizo in there just makes it a bit heartier and.

It's really good.

So there are your recipes for the week. You can find and print them all in recipe Club individually or in our weekly meal plan, which has easy to follow shopping lists broken down my recipe and as a reminder, recipe Club really is just a resource that allows you to access family tested, quick and simple recipes on the internet without being bombarded with those things that drive me nuts, the ads, the long blog posts, the long stories. I have found that accessing recipes on the internet. I find it to be frustrating most resources that I go to, so I have very intentionally built Recipe Club as a space where I don't include those things that drive me graz So I hope it is a great resource for some of you, and if you're looking for a trusted resource, we would love to have you in the club. All right, let's jump into the back half of the podcast and discuss building your own recipe binder. So I've already shared some thoughts surrounding how I think a recipe binder can make cooking dinner feel a bit more manageable in the kitchen, But now I want to discuss the actual details surrounding how to build a recipe binder, because let's be honest, it can feel a bit overwhelming, maybe similarly to how you might feel about putting together a family photo book each year. You know you want to do it, and you know you'll be so happy that you did it once it's done, but it can like you kind of have to psych yourself up to do it. So let's see if we can't make this feel a bit more manageable and break it down. So to me, there are two primary steps. We'll call them gathering and building. So we're gonna call this first are gathering step, because this is where we're going to gather all of the recipes that we want in our binder. Now, different from a cookbook, your binder has the ability to be completely customized for the needs and preferences of your household. And cookbooks are amazing, They're wonderful. I love a good cookbook, but even a really good cookbook, I maybe cook three or four recipes out of it and then it goes on a shelf and then I forget about it. The difference in having a recipe binder is this is going to be a binder that is filled with the recipes you make most often, that are likely gathered from multiple sources, from your own family recipe lineup, from a favorite food blogger, from a favorite cookbook author, from someone at book club who's told you a recipe that you wrote down on a post it note like it. It's going to be the recipes that serve you right now. So what you're first going to do is focus on gathering all of those recipes you want in your binder.

In one place.

Now, this is as good of time as any for me to emphasize that your recipe binder should not contain every single recipe you've ever printed or like, it's too much If you put every single recipe you have in one binder, that is not any better than going to Pinterest and typing in easy weeknight dinner. It's too many decisions for you to make. It's overwhelming. So my best suggestion here is to have a daily recipe binder and an index recipe binder. Your daily recipe binder will literally live on your countertop or somewhere very visible in your kitchen and accessible, so that you're reminded that this is a tool you've invested in to help you get dinner on the table. It should first be filled with the recipes that you make most often. So in my house that would be things like bake CD. We have this creamy to maade totalini that only has five ingredients. We have a tortilla soup that I make often. I find that like for me, it's about ten recipes that I consistently make all year long, and those just those just stay in my binder. But then I like to switch things up seasonally every quarter or so. What I mean by this is in the summer, I like to grill, so when I do my summer recipe binder refresh, I add all of my favorite grilling recipes to my minder. And in the winter, I love soups and stews and chilis, and so I'll add those during the colder months. But I'm not usually craving beef stew in July, so it comes out for the summer months. It goes into the index binder, and I'm adding the grilling recipes. So the index binder is my binder where I do keep all of the recipes I know, and I know that I want to keep them. I don't want to necessarily toss them, but I want to keep them there and still make an effort to keep them organized. But I want to be somewhat. I want to have an editing I is what I would say. You may even have a tab in your index binder that's like recipes to try or like in our In the recipe binder I developed, I included a little pocket folder in the back and that is intended to slip in recipes i'd like to try. So you just want to have some system surrounding that. So my index binder is essentially where I keep all of the recipes I know I want to keep, but don't necessarily need to flip through every single time I make dinner. Here's another example for you. Some of my most cherished recipes are the recipes I make for certain holidays. But I don't need my thanks Giving recipes in my binder in June, so they live in my index binder in my holiday tab until I do my Fall recipe refresh, and then I move them over. All of this to say, the first step you need to take in building your recipe binder is to gather the recipes. Whether you have old recipe binders that are disorganized or messy, and or maybe you just have all of your recipes saved in Pinterest or on Instagram, collect the recipes that you make most often and put.

Them in one place. It will help so much.

I promise that can initially even just be a digital place. It can be one list, it can be in your notes aapp. Just make a list of all of the recipes that you love. And you might not need to do this in one sitting. You may say, you know, for the next week, I'm going to just make a list of all the recipes that I love, and then I'm going to make an effort to print all of those out. It could also be a pile of physical recipes if you already are in the habit of printing recipes, but you want to use this gathering step to get rid of any recipes you don't make anymore. So I know there are recipes that I've printed that I either never ended up making for whatever reason, or I didn't like them, or they were a really great fit when my kids were in a different phase, but now they don't really work because no one likes it, So why would I make it that type of thing. So, once you've determined the recipes you'd like to keep in your everyday binder, print them. If they're already printed, you can decide whether or not you want to just put them in the same format for the sake of consistency. I know that this step might seem a little extra, but for something that you use so often, I think it's worth the investment of time it will take to make them all look cohesive. And that's something that we offer in both Recipe Club and when you buy our recipe binders, you get access to our recipe template that is very easy to use. You can simply just add the ingredients, the method, the steps, any notes you want to make, and print those out and then they look so nice. It literally it looks like a cookbook, but it functions like a binder, meaning you can change things out very easily. And honestly, it becomes almost like an everyday airloom because these are the recipes that surround the memories of your family gathering around the table or gathering for a holiday, and this binder can really be something you even passed down. After you've gathered your recipes, it's time for you to get your tools. So we'll call this the building phase. This is essentially step two. And here's what I recommend you need for building a binder. You need an actual binder. And I cannot tell you how much I went through so much research and development. When it came to the ring size of a three ring binder for developing my own recipe binder, one inch was too small. I thought, oh, it's definitely do like a two inch or even the three inch so I can fit more and fit all my recipes in there. I did that and it was like, this thing is way too big. I can't lug this thing around the kitchen. This is it doesn't let like, it doesn't look pretty, it doesn't lay fat, it flat, It's just bulky. And where I landed was a one and a half inch ring, and you can find them. They're not as easy to find, but the binder that I developed is one and a half inch, and very intentionally. I also kind of felt like the sweet spot for me was about one hundred recipes. Now I don't always have one hundred recipes in my binder. That's actually a ton of recipes. But what I did determine is there is never any reason for me to need more than one hundred recipes in my binder at any given time, because I Am not about to have to flip through more than one hundred recipes to make a decision about what I'm going.

To make next Tuesday.

That's just way too much. Now you're index binder. My index binder's a three inch, but I don't use it every day. It literally is just a place to store the recipes that I want to keep. So think about the binder size. I would recommend. I recommend going smaller than bigger. Honestly, if you're willing to do the index binder, the binder you're going to use every day. Make it easy to use, don't make it unwieldy. You can use a binder you already got on hand. I'm sure there's one linerround, or you can buy a cheap one from Target or Walmart or Amazon, or you can invest in a nice one. I personally am such a visual and creative person that for me, having a beautiful binder filled with cohesive recipes, it literally makes.

Me more excited to cook.

Genuinely, it significantly improves the whole experience for me.

So it is worth it to me.

It is so worth it to me that I was like, something does not exist like this, I'm just gonna have to make it, and then I spent a year trying to make it and I did. So you'll also need other than a binder.

Oh, I want to.

Say one more thing about binders. If you are a visual person and you want it to be pretty, there are some really beautiful binders out there that are like covered in materials that are not so kitchen friendly, like grasscloth or like linen, And if you don't care about the esthetic that much, you can totally just choose like a vinyl binder, and that's going to handle spills really well. But I have found that a like a vegan leather that to be the best material to coat a binder. It's really durable, it totally stands up to spills. It's great after something that you know being used every single day for something, So keep an eye out out for vegan leather when it comes to materials coating your binder. You're also going to need some dividers to separate the categories your recipes will fall under. So since you've already gathered your recipes, you can more easily determine what those categories should be for you, and they're probably gonna be different than the categories that I have. Some people like to organize by cuisine like breakfast, dinner sides. Others like to organize by method sheeppan slow cooker skill it. But you need to do what feels easiest for you. Some of the tabs in my binder are Trader shows five ingredients, so you can do a meals on the go. That's another one for me because I'm in this phase where I've got kids in extracurricular activities that at least once a week in certain seasons of the year, we are eating at a ballpark or a studio or you know, on the go in the car. If I'm being quite honest, So make sure you think about don't just assume that because all of the recipe Binder dividers you've ever seen are appetiters, breakfast, lunch, dinner, like, you don't have to do that. That's the way your brain thinks. Great, But you could literally organize those tabs by emotion like dinner rut or meals on the go or picky eat like whatever whatever it is that suits you. But because you've already gone through those recipes, you should have some information to make those decisions. To go with your dividers. You'll also want labels. This could be a SA using like a fine tipped sharpie, or using a label maker, or having you know, pre made labels like our recipe Binder comes with sixteen different labels that are you can choose from. I personally like using a combination of labels that come with our recipe Binder and using a label maker with a clear tape and gold type. This is just a me thing, guys. I like how it looks. It looks really pretty and it makes me happy. You certainly do not have to order the clear tape with gold letters, but I want you to know it exists, and it makes me really happy. And it happens to coordinate really well with the labels that you get in my recipe binder. The next thing you want to consider is page protectors. I've got some pretty strong opinions here. For years, I hated that a traditional page protector made it so you couldn't visibly see the dividers.

You know what I'm talking about.

You put everything in a page protector and then would I'll cover up the dividers. So it was really hard to stay organized. So I worked really hard to develop a a page protector that does not have that little white strip on the inside, and so it just is actually whole punched itself, and so you can actually see the dividers on the end, and I just I like how it looks so much. And you know, I went back and forth as to whether or not I even wanted to utilize page protectors, because you can print on like a synthetic paper that is like indestructible basically. But the thing that's so important to me about this recipue binder is that it can very easily grow with you through your different chapters and seasons of life. And if I have to print on synthetic paper every single time I got a new recipe, I want to put my binder. That feels too hard. It feels way too hard. So that's totally an option you could do. And any office depot or staples you can print on synthetic paper. In fact, I just did it, and it's like, I think I paid two dollars a sheet, So that is totally something you can do. But for me, I really like having the page protectors that still protect the recipes from being torn or spilled on. But I also can just slip that paper out if I'm no longer making that recipe and slip a new one it. A binder filled with page protectors equals a recipe book that can grow with your family over the years that kind of easily morphs to accommodate the current.

Needs of your household.

The last thing I want to discuss when it comes to your binder that has really been very helpful for me is this idea of cheat sheets or reference guides that you keep in your binder. These could be the actual cheat sheets that we have in Recipe Club, which are I mean, they're my favorites, and that's why they're there, because I've shared them with you, like my salad cheat sheet, a lunch cheat sheet, my grilling cheat sheet, Joe's cheat sheet, and so forth. Or it could simply be a list of meals that your picky toddler will eat so that you don't have to think about it, or a list of recipes that you like to make when you're serving a big group. I liked having these helpful tips in my binder so much that when I developed the recipe Binder, I included infographics on the interior, front and back covers with helpful things like how long do I cook chicken thighs or tenders for? And at what ten what's a substitution for buttermilk or sour cream? So really think about filling your recipe binder with the info you regularly rely.

On to help you get dinner on the table.

Then keep your binder out, keep it out in the open or close to where you actually do all of the cooking, so that you have a reminder that this is here to help you in a world that's full of apps and digital shortcuts. It may seem somewhat counterintuitive to suggest that you think about a physical binder to help you get dinner on the table, but it has made such a different friends for me, and I believe that there are certain things that will always just be better.

When you can hold them in your hands.

Finally, let's finish with the weekly gimme five. These are five things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week. First up, it was Valentine's Day and I purchased the cutest heart hoops on Amazon that really just it was a gift to myself and it made me so happy. Another thing that's made me not only like so happy, but has genuinely solved a problem for me is this is gonna sound crazy, you guys. This Eucalyptus lemongrass shower spray. My mom put it in my stocking. I love it. I look forward to using it every day for my morning shower. Not only does it smell like I've been like transported to a spa, but it's amazing for relieving congestion or stuffiness if you're dealing.

With a winter cold.

And when I say it's like solving a problem. I have decided that my best idea has come when I'm in the shower. As a mom to three young kids and a business owner, like my mind is all, someone always always is asking me a question. One of the only places no one can ask me a question is the shower. And so when I step into the shower and it smells so good and I can just have a moment to think, not only is it so enjoyable, but it truly solves a problem for me. Next tip on my Give Me five is an electric kettle. So we've been doing a lot of hot chocolate around here, and after my last electric kettle died is a couple months ago. Honestly, I finally reinvested in a new model, and I am loving this one so far.

It's this beautiful copper color.

It's just an upgrade from what I have before and so fun when we do hot chocolate as a family or for myself.

I love my perk in the morning.

My slow cooker. I got a favorite slow cooker. I have been doing a weekly freezer meal all month and as a result, I'm feeling very I have strong thoughts about my slow cooker, and I just it has been I think going on three year three or four with it. It is such a good one. I love the locking lid functionality, and I just find that it cooks super evenly, so that's another thing that has been just a staple for me. And then finally on my list is my at home printer. So in the past six months, I have bought three home printers. I've been wanting to test them when it comes to like crisp printing and good color transfer, specifically because I've been investing in printing a recipe binder and trying to give you guys resources for having that be the best experience possible. And I have tested three. There's one very clear winner, and that's another I'm just I finally took the other ones and I donated them, and I said, that's it. We are a one printer household.

Though.

All right, you guys, that's all for today. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. This podcast is meant to be a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while you map out meals for the week. Listening to a podcast while imeal Plan has been part of my own simple dinner system for as long as I can remember, so I try and put out something that's a good fit for that each week. Next week we're going to be chatting about how to take a meal to someone, where I walk you through my best suggestions for dropping off a meal.

To someone who could really use it.

Pick me up, So subscribe to the podcast so that episode automatically pops.

Up for you.

Thank you so much for listening today. I'm so glad you're here, and until next time, happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and I look forward to chatting with you next time. Thanks

Kitchen Prescription with Kelsey Nixon

In this cooking meets kitchen organization podcast Kelsey Nixon will help you get dinner on the tabl 
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