Cutting Through Clutter: Organizing Recipes

While I'm less than thrilled about packing sack lunches again, I have been excited about trying new recipes lately {both from Pinterest and from pages torn out of magazines and thrown in a drawer}.  Often I've found it difficult to find a specific recipe when I need it though.  So I thought I'd share with you how I organized all the recipes I want to try and the recipes we've come to love. 

From disorganized chaos, where I can't find anything, to a place for everything! Yes, that photo on the left is from last Christmas.  No, that is not a long time ago and it's not really a big pile, considering that those recipes are the last quarter of a stack that I've been going through over the last two years.  Note to self: Stop tearing recipes out of magazines... We have enough!  So, from a high cupboard stuffed full of cookbooks and a drawer filled up with recipes came the inspiration to use a new, easily accessible cupboard to store all of our favorite recipes.  Yes, all the printed recipes and magazine sheets fit nicely into the two binders on the left of the bottom shelf.  There is something to be said about being able to find what you need when you need it!  I think that's typically my motivation behind organizing: make it work well & look good.

But what you can't see, without a little online digging, are all the recipes stored on my Pinterest boards.  It just started with Recipes: Treats & Tips.  Next I added Recipes: Trim Healthy Mama.  Then I realized that I had a lot of recipes posted that I wasn't using, because I'd never tried them!  Also, I realized that when I'd want to make a delicious recipe again I couldn't find it amidst all the other posts.  

My new solution is this: 
1) Pin new recipes.
2) Try new recipes. 
Simple enough!  But then...
3) Move the recipes I like to a new board. 
    (Thus allowing me to quickly find favorites and to share these recipes easily with others.)
4) Also, I print the recipes and put them in the appropriate recipe binder in our kitchen cupboard.
    (This allows me to write changes and notes down.  Also, I do prefer to cook from a 
     cookbook/paper copy instead of off my tablet.)

All of my new favorite recipes are now located at: 
Recipes: THM Desserts & Snack
Recipes: THM S Meals
Recipes: THM E Meals
These recipes {and other helpful conversion and substitution charts} are printed and filed away in my THM binder:

click here for the free printable cover from Measuring Flower

I have to admit I still have a big oak box full of baking recipe cards.  The rest of our family favorites & treats are stored in this recipe book:

These binders and all our cookbooks are now easily accessible in the new cupboard {well new to the kitchen}, and I think it looks nice and functions well.  Win, win!

• Where do you find new recipes to try?
• What's your favorite system for finding, trying, and keeping new recipes?
• Do you organize old family favorites differently than newly found recipes?