My Master Cookbook

Aside from making a household notebook (click that link and explore that site, along with MANY other sites that give you a glimpse into their own household notebooks on the left column) I am creating a "Master Cookbook" holding all of the recipes my family has tried and liked, and getting rid of actual cookbooks we rarely use to free up more space for cooking supplies (like additional bread loaf pans, pie pans and misc. things I'm finding useful for cooking larger meals). I have several reasons for a master cookbook:

• My well loved cookbook is nearly unreadable from years of heavy use, spills and messes
• Meal planning will be easier to plan meals and a shopping list from one book, as opposed to a shelf full.
• If I'm not well prepared and need a quick snack or meal idea, I can choose from a book that contains only things we like. No reading through recipes to decide if something sounds good!

My master cookbook will go like this:

• A large 3 ring binder with a see-through plastic cover
• A titlepage to fit into my binders cover. I found free country/cooking-related clipart online, found a bible verse that inspirational to me for cooking and providing wholesome food for my family (because I cook every meal here at home) which happens to be Proverbs 31:27 because I "looketh well to the ways of her household..." and certainly "eatheth not the bread of idleness" with three young ones!
• Create a spine label so I can grab this off my shelf and know what it is
• Dividers for sections: breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, snacks, home-made ingredients (for things I like to make at home as opposed to buying them already made - yogurt, cream-of soups, broths, etc.), misc. (for items that are more pantry items that I make- crackers, grahm crackers, pasta, dough recipes, etc.) recipes we'd like to try. I might include a section just for casseroles and crockpot meals (and use different colored paper for the different meat dishes to make them easy to find). I may
• When making recipe pages, I'll probably have one side of a page per recipe to allow room for future notes - if I added or substitute an ingredient and it's good, double/triple recipe conversions, good side dishes and beverages, who in the family likes this meal the most, etc.
• Pages will be kept in a page protector to protect against spills

If you have young children in the house who are eating babyfood, I highly suggest buying the Wholesome Baby Food book from Wholesome Babyfood, which is the entire website put into book form. It's very cheap, it's an electronic book so you get it right away and it's perfect to print out and add to your recipe collection. I printed it and put it into a 1/2 in. binder and keep that on my shelf on it's own, but you could print it and othe rfavorite recipes you like and add an index divider in your master cookbook just for baby/toddler foods.