We Seek After
These Things
Recently returned from serving the people of Honduras for 3 years

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Personal Recipe File

I've been thinking and thinking about how to organize all the gazillions of wonderful recipes I keep coming across through everyone's fantastic blogs. Every day I see mouthwatering cookie recipes, recipes I want to make for dinner, salads for lunchtime gatherings . . . and on and on and on . . .

All these fantastic recipes . . . what to do?

I think I came up with a GREAT solution - at least it WORKS FOR ME!

I went over to gmail (you all oughtta have at least one gmail address, even just to put in the 'blank' for registrations, signups, etc - to channel all your junkie type mail) and created a new email address specifically for my recipe collections. It's super easy, hopefully if you're blogging you don't have anxiety about creating a new email address:)

Also, I picked gmail because they have a really great labeling feature that is super easy to use; more about that in a minute.



For example: my new recipe collection email is called 'kristins.recipes at gmail.com'. Then every time someone emails me a recipe I forward it to my new recipe email. Everytime I find a recipe online with great instructions and wonderful photos, I copy the URL, shoot off an email to my new recipe email address that contains the link / URL. (yup! you're sending an email to yourself!)

Pretty soon - you have a really nice collection of fantastic recipes. Many of them with instructions, photos, all the GOOD STUFF.



Now - with gmails label system, you can label the recipes so they are SUPER easy to locate. Just click the little boxes to the right of all the BREAD/ROLL recipes. Go up to the top on the "label" tab and enter "BREAD/ROLLS" in the box and click "create new". A little label pops up next to all those recipes you selected that says "Bread/Rolls". Amazing! Continue on down your list of recipes labeling them with whatever titles you like; main dish, dessert, misc, salads etc.

Then you can choose to keep a LONG list of these recipes in your inbox. OR, you can click on "select" "all". And then click on the "archive" button and they will all disappear, but will still be available under their LABEL in the bottom left corner of the gmail screen.



Other ideas - do you have favorite PEOPLE or WEB SITES that you collect recipes from? You can create a label for them also. My friend Donna is a super cook. So I created a label for her. Now it's easy to find just my recipes from Donna by clicking on her LABEL.

Here'a a few of MY favorites to get you started!

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake - from Sherry
Best Ever Buttermilk Biscuits - from Safely Gathered In
Asian Noodle Salad - compliments of Pioneer Woman (awesome!)

What's cooking at YOUR house today?

13 comments:

sarah said...

I am trying this!

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a great idea. I have a hard time keeping my regular gmail mailbox empty.

Anonymous said...

GREAT idea. I finally took my mothers advice and installed the google toolbar today before tackling all these WFMW. I am using google notebook to save recipes. You can mark it with a comment, but you can also "tag" it like "bread". I'm new to it, but not new to gmail. It seems like your way might be better. I'll have to try it out.

mamasuisse said...

What a great idea! I store all my recipes in a folder in my Yahoo email, but it doesn't have the cool label system. Now might be a good time to switch to gmail.

* Nancy * said...

I am currently using gmail and have never thought of this! Thanks for the awesome tip, and for the recipes that you included in your post!!

mub said...

What a clever idea. I use delicious for my recipes, but it's just links and not the actual recipe there.

Unknown said...

This is a way good idea, I'm always finding stuff I want to try online!

I was doing compassionate service, now I'm doing VT.

Dianna said...

That's a really great idea, especially with Gmail's great search and labeling features.

Emily said...

Brilliant!!! Thanks for sharing the idea!
Have you discovered www.allrecipes.com? My FAVORITE recipe site.

Joy For Your Journey said...

I love that idea. I was just wondering the other day what I could do to better keep track of recipes I get online. My niece has a cooking blog so I get a lot from her, along with others I collect, but didn't have a good way to organize them. This sounds great!

Kate said...

That is a great idea. I will have to check it out. Have a great weekend.

joyh82 said...

Great idea!

Melissa D said...

Seriously, this has to be the best WFMW tip I've read this year! I can't believe how genius this is. [runs to set up own recipe email...]

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