A Family Recipe Notebook

by Barbara Snyder

As the holidays approach, many of you will be looking for creative ideas for gifts for the holidays. A Family Recipe book can be a much appreciated heirloom that can be passed on and added to over the years.

The Recipe Book in our family started when our oldest child left the nest and wanted to know how to make Mom’s Sweet and Sour Carrots. I gave him the recipe, which he promptly lost. This time I couldn’t find the recipe. And then my son said “Mom, can I have the recipe for your meat loaf, too?” This spawned the idea of putting all of my family’s favorites in a file on the computer, easily accessible, particularly if I wanted to email a recipe to someone. I totally eliminated my messy card file box, which was a blessing, as I often forgot to put the cards back in the box, and many of them were stained and difficult to read.

I started by compiling the recipes, being careful to note the source of each recipe. I made a pile of recipe cards, pages torn out of magazines and books and stacked them beside my computer. I worked on the files at least 15 minutes a day. As I typed I thought of recipes that other people had made that our family had enjoyed, and contacted them so I could include their recipes in our family recipe notebook.

I thought I would have only a few recipes, but that few turned into a compilation requiring categorizing. Here are the categories I use:

Appetizers

Beef

Breakfast

Canning

Chicken

Crockpot

Dessert

Fish

Holidays

Salads

Starches

Vegetables

Vegetarian

When I finished all of the gathering, typing, and organizing, I was ready to prepare the document for viewing/using. I decided I would print out the notebook for a Christmas present for my son. I knew I wanted to use a pre-printed page that I had found at my local scrapbooking store. And that the fifty pages that the recipe notebook had turned into would be quite expensive to print out on this paper. I decided to print out the first page of each category on the fancy paper, and print out the rest on plain paper. You may be talented enough to create your own paper.

As I began printing, I realized that some of the recipes were split over two pages, and that made it difficult to read. So I went back and edited the pages so that the complete recipe was on a page. Some pages had one recipe on them, others as many as three. When I completed the printing, I punched the pages with a three hole punch, and slipped each page into a clear plastic page protector. All the pages went into a 3” 3-ring binder. I decorated the outside with stickers and titled it on the spine, so it would be easy to find in the bookshelf.

The Family Recipe Notebook has been updated, and new chapters have been added, such as Holidays, 21 Favorite Recipes, Monthly Menu Plan, and Entertaining. These last four categories have a menu plan and a grocery list. The Holiday and Entertaining categories have those, plus a plan for cooking in stages, including a schedule for the event day. This year my son decided to host Thanksgiving at his house, using his own recipes, and we will proudly add his recipes to the recipe book.

As the holidays approach, many of you will be looking for creative ideas for gifts for the holidays. Why not give your family and friends the benefit of your family's favorites?