Downsize and organise your cookbooks in just 30 minutes

On average we don’t use or make half of the recipes in each cookbook we own. How much space are your cookbooks taking up and how many recipes will you make or do you need?

Let’s start downsizing and spring cleaning the cookbooks!
1. Take out your cookbooks and pile them up.
2. Go through the books and cut out your favourite recipes.
3. Put these recipes into plastic sleeved folders or lever arch folders sectioned into tabs, e.g. breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, special dinners etc. Whatever system you choose, keep the system simple so that it will work for you.
4. Give away or box up and store the rest.

If you are downsizing or short on space, by doing this exercise you could condense your whole cookbook collection into a few plastic sleeved folders or a lever arch folder.
You are giving away the recipes to others that will use them, rather than them taking up space and being unused.

If you would like to have everything electronic and online, there are many Apps available on Itunes to help you add and manage your favourite recipes such as Donna Hay (free App), Cook Book Recipe (free App).

Some Apps even provide cooking courses, such as The Photo Cookbook – Quick and Easy (cost of $4.99). You could also store your recipes online in Microsoft Word or Evernote. Basically, whatever you are comfortable with. An upside to having this synced with your iPhone is you can access “last minute” recipes to shop for ingredients while out and about.

An upside to having it all in only a few books is that you can grab those books on the run.
No matter what system you choose, if you have only what you use or need, it saves on space and the clutter is gone.

Woops! Did you accidently throw out or give away a recipe you need? The exercise is still worth it. There is always a way to find a recipe. It is a cinch to Google it, find the exact one and print it out in about 2 minutes.

How many cook books will you downsize while you’re spring cleaning? How many do you own? What is your favourite recipe? Tell us below!