On my Mac I open up TextEdit, a simple text editor at the ready, and copy and paste recipes off the internet into it and give it a title. Most recently I did that with meatloaf and smoked salmon dip with recipe suggestions off several sites and here. You can copy in the the url address with each recipe in case you want to go back to the site. Before I start, if I am looking for tips or ingredients out of the several recipes I copied, I print it out and take a yellow highlighter and go through them. My meatloaf search printed out to 6 pages. Sometimes you find a consensus of what might work best that way and at the same time you find stupid, maybe uninformed suggestions, or the genesis of a recipe repeated.

Years ago my kid’s elementary school wanted to put out a community cook book to raise money. I joined the committee and contrbuted all of our family favorites. I named them things like "Katie’s Favorite Wings" and "Kyle’s Brownies". I now have quite a few of our family recipes in a nice cook book!

Every year for 10 years I xeroxed 30-page cookbooks to give as presents. They have proven invaluable to me.

Getting them into the computer helps a lot too.

I was the only one at work who could keep up with a recipe. I always wrote the name of the person that gave me the recipe on the card or sheet or whatever it was jotted down on. Same with recipes I had received from my mother, family reunions, etc. Co-workers would call me to go find their own recipes ’cause they knew I had kept my copy. One Christmas I got the idea to take that drawer full of recipes & put them in a cookbook format. I called each recipe by the party who had originally made it such as Cheryl Pearson’s Cheeseball. If I remembered I noted at the end of the recipe where & when it was served. "Cheryl served this at the family reunion in 1996" or "Enjoyed this at the Wildcat Post-Game Party after winning the North Championship".

Anyway, I gave these as Christmas gifts to my co-workers, hubby’s staff, family & friends. It actually saved me money that Christmas. The printing cost worked out to about $7 per book. I have since given them as wedding gifts. I’ve never sold one, because they are not my recipes to sell. My church talked me into putting one in the fall bazaar & auction. Went for over $50.

I add new recipes as I receive them & I’ve printed updated editions without much trouble.

Anybody can do this. Just clean out your recipe drawer, box, etc.

I use MS Word, then I can do a search if I forget the name. I can bring the laptop into the kitchen and read the recipe from there.

Dick, if you find that recipe post it up. It sounds pretty good.

MikeS.

I use an old Rolladex. When I have tryed a recipie that I really enjoyed I list it in the file where it can be found in my collection. It stores nicely on my counter and saves a lot of hunting and mind changes. Chow Jim

Buy a black and white composition hardcover notebooks, the ones you had in elementary school that you can’t pull the pages out. Get some tape, tape your favorite recipes in it. Label the book by year. Its fun getting a new book every year.

TIP: Only paste recipes in the book that you know you will use, otherwise, you will be overwhelmed. I know its hard throwing out these gorgeous recipes you read, but really, what is the chance you will ever make it.