Once you’ve gotten a sense of how to find weeknight and prep-ahead friendly recipes, you start to accumulated them faster and faster. I always want to try the recipes I see posted at Post Punk Kitchen, and I still haven’t all the delicious things I want to try from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s trio of cookbooks. But how do you organize them?
Since I shop in my own pantry before I plan a weekly menu, it is crucial that I be able to search my recipes by ingredient. I’ve started using Evernote (a fantastic note-taking tool) to store and sort recipes.
I can either clip a recipe from the web or take a picture of a recipe and then store it as a note. I can tag the recipe “weeknight” or “prep ahead” or even “beans” or “lentils.” Then, when I see we have some specific ingredients I want to use, say some leftover cauliflower, I can search my recipes notebook for “cauliflower” and see what comes up. Its a great way to try recipes that I found years ago, but haven’t gotten around to making yet.
Of course, plenty of people use notebooks, binders, or even just a bunch of marked-up and dog-eared cookbooks to keep track of recipes, be they ones to try or long-time favorites. But as you continue to make weekly meal planning a routine, consider a system that makes finding recipes quick, easy and fun!
