There are a few jars of fruit-habanero jam left, if you’re interested!
On Friday I noticed that my vanilla extract was getting low. I remembered recently reading a recipe to make your own vanilla extract on Suzanne McMinn’s page, so I sent Fred an email asking him to pick up a small bottle of vodka and one of rum on his way home.
He did – alcohol’s much less expensive than I’d expected! I should totally take up drinking! (not) – and after a trip to the grocery store on Sunday, I made a double batch of vanilla extract in one of the (empty, never-used) hot sauce bottles we had laying around, and put it up in the cupboard, where it will sit and age for a few months before I start using it.
After I’d gotten the vanilla extract (to be) made, I said “We have all this rum and vodka left. We should do shots!”
Then I paused and thought about it for a moment.
“Do people DO vodka and rum in shots?”
He laughed and said “They do sometimes, I think.”
I have so much to learn.
I’m looking for a good way to organize my recipes. Currently, I print them out on 4×6 recipe cards and keep them in a recipe box, but it’s a pain in the ass to dig through the recipe box to find recipes, and I can’t always fit the entire recipe on one side of the card (or I can, but I have to do it in tiny type, and I have aging eyes). I’m thinking of printing each recipe out on a full-size sheet of paper, then putting each recipe in a sheet protector (well, two in each sheet protector, one on each side), and organizing them in a three-ring binder by recipe type.
Alternately, I could print each recipe out and laminate them, then punch holes and organize them in a three-ring binder, but the laminating sheets are rather more expensive than the sheet protectors, and I’ve never been good at using that self-laminating stuff.
I don’t know. How do y’all organize your recipes?
This little chicken – who we think is a Barred Rock – is about the friendliest chicken we’ve ever had. He came from the hatchery in our November batch, and he was friendly from the very beginning. These days, if we do something that startles the chickens, they all run away from us, except for this one, who runs toward us. He likes to stand between my feet when I toss out scratch for the chickens. When Fred sits on the bench out in the chicken yard, this little chicken approaches and wants to be picked up.
He – though I’ll admit we don’t know whether he’s male or female – has earned the name “Mr. Friendly.”
We’re actually talking about putting two or three chickens in the back yard because they’re pretty good at pest control and because we like seeing them run around the back yard. Mr. Friendly and the silkies might be turn into our backyard flock.
I don’t know, though – I’m not sure Kara can be trusted around the little chickens. She’s got the look of the killer about her.
I got Rumba to snuggle with me, and she didn’t even try to pretend that she hated it! Her favorite place to be these days is in my room (when she’s not skulking around the downstairs, that is).
Peekaboo.
More kitten pics over at Love&Hisses.
Sugarbutt looks just a little too pleased with himself, doesn’t he?
Previously
2008: “Well,” I said. “You really hit the fuckup trifecta this weekend, didn’t you?”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “That’s all she had to say! A simple ‘thank you’ would have made Doug as happy as a sissy with a dick in his mouth!”
2004: This DOES NOT STRIKE ME as a government that is staying the FUCK out of my face!
2003: A Day in the Life of Miz Poo.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Ahhh, sweet blessed Friday.
I print them out, put them in sheet protectors, and then put them in a binder. I also have separators in the binder to organize them by type of recipe. I used to alphabetize them by category, but they would always end up back in each section by order used, so that works. If we want something fresh, I go to the back of the section, but all my standbys are right at the front, for easy access.
For recipes, I use a big 3 ring binder with the sheet protectors. However, I do not have them organized in there. I just flip until I find the one I want. The most used ones get put on top when I place them back in the binder. I have them hand-written on bright colored notebook paper. I dislike buying such expensive printer ink so most things get written down unless it is necessary to use said printer.
Does this mean that Mr. Friendly gets a “stay of execution?”
And I’m curious, what is the life-span of a chicken if it isn’t eaten first?
I do the sheet protector/binder thing too. I have six or seven binders, so that I can separate recipes by salad/soup, vegetarian main dishes, meat main dishes, desserts, etc. They fit nicely in a drawer, and the recipes stay clean when I work — bonus!
I do the binder/ sheet protector thing for knitting patterns! (Not recipes, because I don’t really cook all that much…)
Ditto on the binder/sheet protector thing here – my receipes are sort of organized… I have tabs for the main things, but mostly stuff just gets stuffed in whatever binder fits. I tend to rip out pages from magazines with good recipes and store them this way instead of keeping stacks of magazines lying around…
Sheet protectors and a binder. Works great and easy to wipe off the smudge of cooking. You are correct . . . the chicken in today’s post is a barred rock. I also believe it is a pullet/hen. I have one just like her and they are very friendly; we call her “Jail Bird”
I have been using the binder/sheet protector for years. I used to type them on paper (old fashioned before computers) then add my own comments in my handwriting in the borders (too much suger, kids like this one etc). Now I have all my recipes in a recipe file on my hard drive. I print them and put in sheet protectors in a binder in the kitchen. This way, I have it in my computer for emailing to friends and family if they ask for a recipe. I also can reprint if old one is getting dirty.
Um we have a Mr. Friendly at our house. Totally different thing though.
I keep my recipes on my laptop. If I had a working printer, I might occasionally print one out to have on hand during a complicated operation, but I don’t so mostly I’m good about using a pencil eraser to page up and down.
For recipes, I use a 3-ring binder and those old-school sticky photo pages with the plastic over them. It’s like a sheet protector but it holds the recipe in one spot on the page, which I find useful because sometimes my recipes don’t take up a whole page and I can get several on a page that way, etc. If you need to move them around, they usually peel off the sticky part pretty easily and can be re-stuck in another part of the binder.
Put your recipe cards in a photo album sized for 4″ x 6″ pictures. The plastic will wipe clean, and if you get a binder-style photo album you can add whole pages in there, too.
I do like Bethany – put the recipe/note cards in a photo album for 4″ x 6″ pictures. I have one for baking, one for dinners, one for sides, etc.
I tape my recipes to cardstock (just the top, so they can be flipped up if needed) and put them in sheet protectors in a 3-ring binder. I never re-write anything, so I have recipes cut out from the newspaper, written on envelopes and sticky notes, and nicely printed ones from my family and friends on actual recipe cards–all pasted together. I have them somewhat organized by category (mostly cookies, actually…) but I could improve on the system with dividers if I wasn’t so lazy.
Right now all of mine are in a fileing cabinet, just torn out of magazines, newpapers, coppied on notebook paper. Each catagory having it’s own file. If I try the recipe and love it, I photocopy it on a full size piece of white paper. One day I will put them in a binder. 😉
I use a program called Big Oven to save and sort my recipes. I have what my family calls the “kitchen laptop” and all I use it for is for web access and the recipe program. When I cook, I just set the laptop up on one of my counters and go at it.
I do the sheet protector/binder thing, too. Well, that’s my intention anyway. I can’t find my binder at the moment. 🙂 But I’m doing really well at printing out all the recipes!
My recipe “Organization” consists of a bunch of loose sheets of paper, backs of chocolate chip bags, sides of cake boxes, labels from cans, whatever the recipe is written on stuffed into the front of my Betty Crocker. Mostly, though, when I cook I fire up my computer and read the recipe from somewheres online (I’m starting to put my loose recipes in electronic format so it’s easier to find them and cook them).
My husband has a Mac program he uses called Yum which is pretty cool. We have a lot of our faves entered and ready to go at a moment’s glance.
I don’t cook much so my recipes are http://www.recipezaar.com I do have some on old fashion 3×5 cards in an old fashion recipe box, but I tend to get a whim for something at work, hit recipezaar to find a recipe. I print it and take it home – ssh don’t tell my boss. If I like the recipe, I stick it in My Cookbook on the site. I’ve been known to have the computer on the kitchen table while I cook.
When I first saw Rumba’s picture, I thought the white decorations on the cat bed were her feet. It startled me thinking how could the cat it like that. Then I realized it was just decorations. I got my furminator yesterday. Yeah. Now I just have to get the cats used to it. Yesterday, they were crazed fools. I don’t know if it felt good and it brought out the goofiness or if they did not like it and it made them wild.
How does the homemade vanilla extract work with using rum and vodka?? Does it have to age so the alcohol content goes away? I am confused.
binder and sheet protectors here too
ditto the binder and sheet protectors. I’m finding it too big and bulky now though,so I’m
going to make my own cookbook. There are a lot of sites out there to help with the project.
We all love the jam and hot sauce! Enjoying it very much!
LOL at Elaine’s comment!!
I too use the sheet protectors and a big binder for my favourite recipes. It’s the easiest way to get my hands on them quickly and the sheet protectors prevent me from spilling stuff on them – I’m a messy cook!
Vodka makes a good cleaner on tile, bathtubs, kitchen surfaces and the like. Also makes a good room deoderiser spray mixed with your favorite essential oil.
And finally, I believe the average natural lifespan of a chicken is around 8 years.
Well, I’m a total cooking (yeah, and non-cooking, too) geek, so I’ve got an LCD screen mounted to the side of a cabinet and a waterproof keyboard & mouse off to one side that’s hooked to a WinTerm device hidden in the cabinet. I store all the recipes on the file server and just look them up on the screen in the kitchen. The only time I print them out is if I’m going them off to someone else’s place to cook. I don’t use any fancy software or indexing, though, just a bunch of MS Word files…
Boogs: “Did you just fart?”
Sugerbutt: “I. Do. Not. Fart.”
I use 4×6 recipe cards and store them in a Pocket Page Recipe Book by C.R. Gibson. I bought the binder and extra transparent pocket sheets, but use my own 4×6 recipe cards. You can find them at:
http://www.crgibson.com/Default.aspx?Page=2&CategoryID=9&SubCategoryID=52
Like most everyone else, I print mine out, put them in sheet protectors and file them in 3-ring notebooks by category.
Does Jane know you named a chicken after Mr. Friendly?
Another vote for Binders/sheet protectors.
The section dividers I use have pockets in them…If I see something interesting, I print it out and put it into the front pocket for it’s section. After I make the recipe, if it’s a keeper, it gets filed into the correct category.
This system works really well for me and has vastly expanded the number of dishes I cook.
When I was a kid, I had a pet Barred Rock hen who sat on a fence post in the chicken yard and waited for me every single morning. She would then follow me all day and sit in my lap whenever I sat down, waited on the porch when I went in the house for lunch. Maybe it is just a friendly breed of chicken. I always thought mine was just a freaky chicken : )
I do the sheet protector binder thing. I have 2 binders – one for desserts/cookies/cakes, etc and the other for main dishes, sides, buffet stuff. I like it better because I can just pull out the recipes I’m planning for the week and take the sheets to the store. I was always losing the little cards. I also use different colored paper for different categories – it’s easier for me to organize that way
You know, I cook the same five or six things for dinner every week, but I have great hopes of cooking something new and different. So, not only do I have an insane number of cookbooks, but I also have three binders of recipes in sheet protectors (like everyone else). One issue I have is that the binders do not fit nicely in the shelves of my kitchen cabinet, so I recently purchased a little cabinet to hold my large cookbooks and binders — I really need to justify all my books/recipes. I would add that I bought my sheet protectors at Sam’s Club. They were really reasonable.
I have a couple of binders, one a Betty Crocker and one with a Debbie Mumm kitchen design. I got them at B & N in the bargain section and they already had dividers for different types of cooking and they came with a notepad and fridge magnets. They also included a bunch of blank pages that match the cover design. Cute and cheap! Don’t use sheet protectors though.
I use the binder system too. I have one binder for “tried and true” favorites, which will one day possibly get sorted by category. My other binder has all of the print-outs and torn-out magazine pages of recipes I want to try one day.
Orgjunkie.com is doing a recipe organization challenge in February. She’s already explained her organizing system, and there are sure to be great ideas from others.
I’ve done the 3 ring binder with sheet protectors too but I almost never pull those binders out. I like having everything on the computer where I can search it. For something I just want to try out I paste it in a gmail email. For things I use a lot I take the time to put it in Mastercook. That way I can analyze nutrition, make adjustments in servings, create cookbooks for my grown children. or make shopping lists. If I don’t want to work off my laptop, I’ll just print the recipe out on scratch paper. That way if it gett dirty it doesn’t matter.
I use the binder and sheet protectors too. I was hoping to find something more compact to keep them in besides that or a file box but haven’t come up with anything good yet.
Interesting chicken pet. You could tell people it’s a parrot with a tumor on the Pituitary gland 🙂
I also do the print out/sheet protector/binder thing or I add recipes to Easy Chef’s One Million of the World’s Best Recipes CD.
Well, I’m going against trend here.
I’ve had the binders, and there are just too many of them. I rip out a lot of recipes, and never seem to cook them!
So I’m slowly transferring the ones I actually cook, and work really well, onto index cards and keeping them in my new recipe box. Then if I want a sure-fire, dead-set, going-to-work, we-love-it recipe I go to my green box and all is well.
When I’m feeling adventurous, and want to try something new, I flick through my binders and pick something (with the hope it will turn into an index card soon).
I tend to find the majority of my recipes online, so I keep them in a favorites folder. When I’m given a hand written/typed recipe, I slide inside a little folder I keep. I don’t cook as often as you do. It’s not a passion for me, it’s a chore. ;o)
Oh! Now that I’ve left 3 (including this one) comments in the year I’ve been reading…can I be moved from the “lurker’ category to the “reads daily, but doesn’t comment very often” category?