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​Keeping Track of Recipes​ - Another Idea

Like Megan Hall, I also have a lot of recipe books, and found it hard to remember which book a favourite recipe was in, particularly when there are similarly named recipes in different cookbooks (and even cookbooks with similar names)! So I got myself a good sized hard-cover notebook and made it into an index book for favourite and commonly used recipes. Now, of course, you can do it on your computer and print it out, reprinting if you wish from time to time after you've added sufficiently more to your lists. It took a while to set up, but works very well. I divided the book into sections: first, a list of all my cookbooks, giving each a short name as well i.e. you may have two or more cookbooks starting with "Healthy...", so you'll need a different short name to differentiate. I then divided the rest of the book up into sections, such as starters/entrees, soups, beef mains, seafood mains, cakes and baked goods, desserts, drinks, Christmas - however you want to divide up your recipes. Leave a sufficient number of pages for each section. Then I went through each cookbook, and listed the particular recipes into the relevant section/s of the index book, together with the cookbook name (short name) and page number. It makes it so much easier to find things. You can also add notations, e.g. Q (quick recipe), E (good for entertaining), or whatever you want. Any new recipe I try (and like) goes straight into the index book. No more searching - just use the index book! 
Contributed by Judy Dickinson