For what it’s worth, I thought today I would share my recipe binder.

In today’s virtual world of recipe websites and amazing food blogs, I think there is still something to be said for holding a recipe in your hands and carrying it with you to the kitchen. I must not be alone, for a recent study found that last year, while overall book sales dropped, cookbook sales were up.

I love a good cookbook, but I also love finding recipes from newspapers, printing them from websites and cutting them out of one of my magazines to stow away for future use.

I used to find myself with a hodge podge of clippings in no particular order, shoved in cookbooks and such. I tried a recipe box once, but I didn’t really like using one. Instead, many years ago I came up with this solution:

I keep my hodge podge clippings in the front and back folder areas of the binder. Since I continually try new recipes to share with you, recipes regularly are moved from the folder to one of two places: if the recipe is a keeper, it goes into the protected pages of the binder, according to meal type (e.g., starter, salad, seafood, etc).

If the recipe is a dud, the clipping goes into the trash.

The bonus of using protected binder pages is that the recipes are protected from spills, drops and sprays of food.

Think of this method as a fun way to create your own personal family cookbook.

SPC