Tidbits From This Week

This post is a part of Tuesday Twister at GNOWFGLINS.

This week I finally took my recipes- the ones I actually use now & refer to- and put them in a binder.  Using a 3 ring binder and photo pages (sticky-type pages from old photo albums) is my preferred way of keeping my recipes.  I had two large binders with my collection of recipes, but I went through them & picked out the recipes that I actually use & the ones that fit with our new "real food"/Nourishing Traditions style of eating.  I wanted to share with you how I organize my recipes in case you need help organizing yours.

My sections are: Dessert, Breads, Breakfast, Vegetable/Salads, Rice & Beans, Meatless Entrees, Pork, Fish, Beef, Chicken, and "Etc." (sauces, beverages, and so on).  I had these little sticky notes that I wrote my titles on, folded them in half over the page, and then stapled it. 

I took this photo so you could see what a typical page in my book looks like.  I've got a recipe that I copied from a web page, pasted into a word document, and then printed. I've got a recipe photocopied from a cook book (I even have recipes cut out of cookbooks- a few years ago I purged my cookbook collection- I only kept a few and from the rest I actually cut out the recipes I wanted).  I also have a recipe that I scribbled on a piece of scrap paper after reading it somewhere on the internet.  Some great things about the sticky photo pages is they keep all different sizes of recipes, and they are splash & spill proof!  As I fill up the pages in a section I just open up the binder & add in a new page- easy!

A few recipes I will be adding to my binder this week: first, I used this recipe for "soaked" pizza crust (update 6/17/10: recipe gone, try this one).  I used one third of the dough & froze the other two-thirds in bags for later use.  I made a pizza for me & the little guy- marinara & cheese for him, pesto & cheese for me!

I made this in the broiler pan for our toaster oven.  If you make pesto pizza make sure you use a pan with edges, because the olive oil in the pesto becomes very thin & could make a mess otherwise!

Second, I tried out the recipe Millie posted for Buttermilk Syrup.  I used turbinado sugar & it was yummy, but I think next time I'll try using less sugar because it was a little over-sweet for me.  I used the buttermilk syrup to cut my real grade B maple syrup in half hoping to stretch out that precious stuff.  I was able to pass it off on the little guy (the maple syrup lover- the same one who I caught drinking a coffee cup full of maple syrup one day!)  However, he really balked when we pulled it out of the refrigerator the next day looking like this:

Yeah, I didn't think about the fact that this syrup is made with butter!  So, you're going to need to put it in a pot of hot water to mix it up again before using (which makes a glass container come in handy).  Can you tell what my re-purposed syrup container used to be?  Here's a hint: the little guy calls this our "Chinese Maple Syrup".  Ha!

Enjoy!
Lisa