Happy Friday, friends! I’m thrilled to share a tour of my recipe binder with you today! Getting it organized a few weeks ago was a huge step forward in my 2020 goal of streamlining meal planning. It’s made meal planning and cooking simpler, easier, and more joyful – what more could a gal want?! If you’ve been considering making a recipe binder of your own, I think you’ll love today’s tour!
As promised, I filmed a video of myself flipping through every page, explaining what I included and giving you a little commentary on each recipe. It’s about 20 minutes long, and it might be incredibly boring or just what you’re looking for – ha!
Supplies needed for your recipe binder: — A 3-ring binder! Mine is 1″, nothing fancy, but I’m considering upgrading to 1.5″ or 2″ because it’s currently bursting at the seams. — Tabs to divide your binder into sections. I kept mine simple and have sections for main dish, sides, dessert, breakfast, and my meal planning archive. I might divide them into more specific categories in the future, but for now, this is working well! — Page protecters. These make it easy to slip in magazine clippings or recipe cards. Of course, you can also just three-hole-punch most things, but it’s nice to be able to wipe off splatters :) I actually got my page protectors for free from my neighborhood Facebook group, so it’s worth asking around!
What I put in my recipe binder: — At the front, I keep extra copies of my custom Publix grocery list, organized by aisle at my local store. This has been SO helpful for staying organized and moving through the store quickly! Download a copy here, though be warned it is unique to my family’s favorites and some of my vernacular and abbreviations! :) — In the first tab’s pocket, I keep a cheat sheet of non-recipe meals – things like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken caesar wraps, or buffalo chicken pizza. It’s helpful to have this list handy when I’m meal planning so I remember to consider them as options, even though they’re not otherwise in the binder! — The bulk of the binder is obviously the recipes! You can see all of the ones that are available on the internet in this Pinterest board, though of course my binder also includes recipes from friends and family and magazine clippings gathered over the years. — The last tabbed section is my meal planning archive. Each sheet (download yours here, if you’d like) holds 12 weeks of meals, and having this record is great for jogging ideas when I sit down to plan our meals each week. More to come on this subject soon!
How I use my recipe binder: I meal plan once a week. As I consider our meals for the next few days, I flip through my binder for ideas. I also look through this Pinterest board, where I collect recipes I haven’t made but want to try. If I make a new recipe that we love, I’ll print it out and add it to the binder (and then move it on Pinterest, too).
Why I really love my recipe binder: My absolute favorite thing about this meal planning development is that cooking is now an analog experience. There’s no more navigating my laptop with sticky fingers, impatiently waking up a sleeping screen, or dodging pop-up ads. It’s just nice to be looking at a page after staring at a screen all day, most days!
Also, I’m really grateful to have all of my favorite recipes in one place that’s under my control. I had the alarming experience recently of pulling up one of our favorite recipes and seeing that the blogger had gone back and altered it – yikes!! Thankfully I had the old version memorized, but it was a good reminder that any blog could go offline at any time, taking a prized family meal with it. Plus, I just love having all of my favorites in one place that feels more permanent than the internet cloud! :)
I think that’s it, friends! I’m planning a comprehensive post walking through how I meal plan in detail next week, but I wanted to get this tour to you first. If you have any questions you’d like me to answer in next week’s post, or about my recipe binder, please ask away in the comments!
I’d love to hear: how do you organize your recipes? Any tips to pass along to the group? :)
Another mini goal update for you! This time for our 2020 goal of living a wild life outdoors. Though living into this goal most often looks like venturing out into the woods or playing in a creek, sometimes progress is closer to home — as in the case of our new front porch gate! This is a small update that has just delighted us, so I thought I’d share it with you today.
Those who have been around awhile may remember that when we finally made an offer on our current house, after a long search and several failed contracts, the biggest thing we ended up compromising on was actually one of our top criteria: a large yard. After 7 years, I am (mostly) at peace about this, but it is still sometimes hard for me to reconcile what living a “wild life” with small children looks like when we don’t have the same acres of woods, expansive lawns, big trees, rocks, and streams that surrounded both John’s and my childhood homes.
However, just because we don’t have the yard of my dreams doesn’t mean we have nothing; we certainly have much to be grateful for in our home and in our front and back yards! Aside from those green spaces, there was another space I was determined to maximize this year: our front porch. It’s decently sized and nicely shaded by a plum tree most of the day, so it had great potential as a play space for the kids. However, there was a major issue: our front steps are many and steep, so there was no way Shep could be out there without an adult in arm’s reach, let alone by himself.
Especially after a day at school, I love being able to have them outside, but at their ages, I can’t just turn them loose. So, how to balance independent play while also completing dinner prep? Our kitchen is at the front of our house, meaning it was totally possible to have them out there, playing happily while I watched them through the window — as long as we solved the issue of the steps.
Enter: our favorite handyman! Inspired by many of our neighbors who have similar gates for their own steep steps, we asked Don to build and install a gate for our porch. He did a magnificent job — considering the utility it’s already given us, it was well worth the few hundred dollars he charged us. I’ve always loved the idea of a white picket fence, and swinging our new gate open and closed gives me all those vibes even without the fence :)
The kids love being out there at all hours of the day now: it’s the perfect spot for eating snacks, digging in the sand/rock table, any kind of water play, muffin tray “cooking,” rock painting, and much more.
Later this summer, I hope to add a few big potted plants as a bit of a privacy screen, to add some softness and another play element. Our kids are currently very eager to spot our neighbors’ Frenchie through the railing, though, so they’re not concerned :)
I have another post idea brewing with pros and cons for two more major updates we’re considering for our downstairs, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear: what’s a small (or big) update you’ve made to your home that’s made you so happy?
The end of last month and the end of this one feel feel light year’s different, in many ways. At the end of March, I was still thrown off by all that didn’t go as planned – our Florida vacation canceled, my potluck party canceled, lots of things on hold.
My April goals, though, were set with a much more realistic picture of what was ahead. Just knowing that gave me a huge burst of energy – one I rode most of the month. Interestingly, it actually looks like I didn’t get much accomplished, but almost everything was moved forward in at least a small way. And in between, not shown on this list, we had SO many sweet, sun-filled, slow moments together. I’m looking forward to the same in May.
On my calendar this month: — Mother’s Day! I think we’re going to make bookmarks for the grandmothers and great-grandmother this year. If you’re looking for ideas, we’ve made this artwork in the past (celery!). — Picking strawberries! Our local field has done a fantastic job of keeping everything super-safe and we are loving having a bucket of fresh berries in the refrigerator at all times.
What I’m loving right now: — This shirt from Target is very, very cute and in my opinion looks WAY more expensive than it is. The woven fabric is so nice, too! Most definitely order a size down from your usual – it is billowy and beautiful, but looks cute tucked in :) See a peek here! — I mentioned these gingham placemats in passing in another post, but they’re so sturdy and so cute (great colors), and they wipe off really easily. The perfect foundation for meals and coloring sessions! We have the green but I also love the blue. — Have you tried out Peloton Family yet? June really enjoys the 5-minute classes, and now she walks around the house curling her biceps and saying, “I am strong! I am confident! I’m going to make it a really great day!” ha! Also it is embarrassing how sore I can be after doing this with her – clearly I need to incorporate more strength training with my cardio. The app is free for 90 days right now! — I have poached so many recipes from my sister-in-law, including most recently these sheet pan pancakes. As the one usually standing and flipping while everyone else is eating, this is a revelation!
What I read in April: As a library and physical book devotee, I am really struggling right now! I did breeze through my fiction pick for April, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, after borrowing it from my neighbor, and it was really good. Hard to read at times, of course, but definitely a page-turner. Otherwise, I have mostly been catching up on my magazine subscriptions!
Revisiting my April goals: Finish printing out Pinterest recipes and rearrange boards(Done! Feels so good!) Clean out our garage (This is the one item we made no progress on! Just couldn’t find a time without another priority where John and I could both devote some energy to it.) Make spring recipe cheat sheet (With finishing my recipe binder, I actually decided this cheat sheet wasn’t needed, so I scratched it off.) Design and print our first family photo album! (While I didn’t finish this, I did take the next steps forward! It was held up when I realized I still had about 75 loose photos that need to be digitized before I can finish the layout.) Finish reading Matthew with John and begin Mark (Still ticking away) Connect with each of my 8 focal friends in a meaningful way (Got 4/8!) Roast s’mores in our backyard Make an Easter egg tree with June for our dining room table
May goals: — Clean out the garage — Digitize loose photos from 2005-2009 — Design and print our first family photo album — Finish reading Matthew with John and begin Mark — Complete gifts for Mother’s Day (for grandmothers and great-grandmothers) with June + Shep — Send watercolor hugs (My friend Kristy is making these and they are SO BEAUTIFUL! Such a win-win to support a small business and send love to dear ones. I bought the big bundle!) — Go camping in our backyard — Complete friend dossiers — Experiment with a custom Publix shopping list — Make a list of all our non-recipe meals for binder
Friends, I would love to hear: what are you doing for Mother’s Day this year? My sisters and I are going in on Lake Pajamas for my Mom as well as the aforementioned bookmarks. Wish I could hug her, though!
My 2020 goal of streamlining meal planning is ticking along nicely. It’s satisfying to feel like I’m making real progress on something when so much feels out of my control – AND it’s something that’s making my daily life better right now! Progress has taken all different forms, but today I wanted to share one simple hack that’s been so helpful for us with meal planning.
June school photos!!!
Emphasis on simple. We hung a magnetic dry erase board on the side of our fridge and use it to track inventory of our freezer stash. Now, I can easily see what we have on hand without rifling through our cold storage. This is helpful for both deciding on our meals for the week – what’s in the freezer that we can base a meal on? – and for assembling a grocery list – what do we already have that we don’t need to buy?
You could certainly do this with a pad of paper, but the dry erase board is a neat solution. To note: we don’t include EVERYTHING in our freezer on the list – mostly just ingredients that are relevant for meal planning. For example, you won’t see frozen cookie dough on the list above, but rest assured we are always well-stocked :)
That’s it! A simple meal-planning hack that’s helped us plan more efficiently and waste less food.
I’d love to hear: what meal-planning hacks do you swear by? Also, a question: with my recipe binder pretty much complete, I’m curious if a video flip-through would be of interest? I could give you some commentary on my favorite recipes? I’m not really much of a video person, but thought this could be fun. Let me know what you think!
P.S. If our dry erase board is sold out, this one looks very similar! Ours is fine but nothing particularly special, so don’t worry about going with a different one :)
