How To Organize Recipes | No More Wasted Time!

Do your recipes look like this?

I used to keep my recipes in file drawers. Folders and folders and folders full of files. Packed full of loose paper. Papers covered in scribbles. Recipes ripped from magazines. The worst? Ink jet printed recipes that had been spilled on rendering the print nearly unreadable.

Can I get a shout out my friends?

Then the file drawer over flowed into a second. I divvied the recipes up into tried and true, still working on and ‘want to try’. Then I started adding client files full of modified recipes for special diets, recipes they’ve provided. Cue another file drawer.

As a very visual personal I had myself convinced that I needed to see and feel these old sad scraggly pieces of torn and stained paper to help me connect with the recipe and my history with it.

Well that was crap. What a load of crap.

Prefer to watch? Here’s a facebook live I did about How To Organize Recipes…

Finally I gave up and started looking for an e-solution.

I looked at software and even thought about creating a recipe database but then a few years ago I found Copy Me That.

Cue sunlight breaking through clouds and angels singing to a harp accompaniment.

(BTW, this is not sponsored or an affiliate link, I just use and like the app!)

Using Copy Me That

I started using it to save recipes I found online that I wanted to try. Without printing them all out.

Then I started saving client recipes in it because they were so easy to search for. Without having to create a million files.

Now I’m even working on my backlog of old faithfuls to get them entered and saved from a lifetime of damage and possibly loss. Digging my way out of my hoarder quality paper piles.

Now everything is at my fingertips by computer and phone.

And Copy Me That (CMT) is free!

It clips online recipes, you can enter your own, it can even create meal plans and grocery lists.

As a matter of fact I just realized that I can automagically create my grocery lists for my clients since all those recipes are already in CMT.

Cue the Homer Simpson *doh*. Wow the time this will save me!

Now if I could export it straight to my Amazon Fresh cart that would be truly life changing!

 

Why Copy Me That Is So Good

You can get to CMT from any browser so on a pc/mac or there’s a free app for ios and android.

It also has an upgraded version with additional functionality like recipe scaling, converting between Imperial and metric, arranging the shopping list to fit your grocery store layout and more!

And it’s not one of those crappy apps that are constantly trying to sell you stuff and there are NO ads!

As a matter of fact, Tine the developer even says, share your account with family members if you want just give them your login info.

The Best Part of Going E-style

Now I know you might be like me and wanting to cling to your paper ways. I have entrees categorized by pork, poultry, beef, etc but even then I have recipes that overlap multiple categories but with paper I have to commit to only one OR keep multiple copies. That spins quickly out of control. Sure, I could keep up an index but in the immortal words of Sweet Brown…ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat!

In CMT you can pick multiple categories and also use tags and just search by any word whether it’s a certain ingredient, technique, client’s name etc.

Conclusion

My recipes are easily searchable. I don’t have piles of client recipes that have minor variations I have to keep track of. There aren’t files of recipes I need to keep but that I wouldn’t make for my own family (octopus anyone? I mean I’d make it but they wouldn’t eat it!).

And they’re perfectly printable with a lot of options for formatting so I can still drag them around the kitchen and spill all over them.

After all I’m not completely evolved!