July 11, 2012

Cook Book Help

I like to cook but sometimes my cooking just isn't something that's going to send you over the moon. I love finding new recipes and always get so excited when I think about trying to make something new. But the reality is that food is expensive and sometimes when you find a new recipe you just don't have the money to go out and buy 5 new spices or some ingredient you've never heard of to come home, make it all, and hope your family will like this new meal you threw together. So when I find a recipe I think everyone would like (thank goodness we are not picky eaters!) and I actually have everything to make it, or it won't cost me an extra $20 at the check out I get excited.

When I became a stay-at-home mom again at the beginning of the summer I had so many idea's of things I wanted to get done. Taylor was out of school for the summer, this would be the first summer semester I wasn't going to be taking any classes and I had about 12 weeks before school would resume for both of us. I was on a mission to get a bunch of stuff done. One thing on my to-do list was to clean out my cupboard and gather all the recipes that had just been written on scratch paper, torn out of magazines and just tossed into a binder. It was unorganized, nothing was fully written out, it didn't have pictures. It just didn't interest you or spark this excitement that made you want to cook. So I sat down at the computer every morning with my cup of coffee while Taylor was still asleep (sometimes DJ too if he wasn't working) and I started typing every recipe into my computer. I put each recipe on a new page and even added a picture of what it's supposed to look like. I say "what it's supposed to look like" because let's face it, my end result often doesn't look anything like it does in the magazine. Still just as tasty though and I guess that's all that matters. Back to my point . . . this was a great idea, right? Wrong. Now I have all these recipes sitting in a file in my computer, all pretty, but now it means I have to move my lap top into the kitchen every time I'm going to make something but don't know the recipe by heart. It just clutters the kitchen counter, things splatter up on it, cords get in the way etc. It's not pretty like I had dreamed about so many mornings while typing away. 

I thought about just printing off each recipe and organizing them in a binder. But that's too similar to the system I had before, it wouldn't stay organized and printing each page with a color picture could get expensive and use a lot of printer ink. So I'm going to do exactly what one blog writer did - make my own cook book! You can read about how she did her cook book here. I love the idea of my cook book having my own pictures and hopefully one day I can pass it down to Taylor and she will be as fond of it as I'm sure I will be.

So I'm asking for a little help. I am having the hardest time coming up with a cute name for the cook book. I don't just want it to say "Cook Book". I want something fun and cute. The other blog writer named hers "Cooking on Clover Lane". That's perfect since her street has a cute name; ours not so much. So can someone please toss some cute, creative names my way? Also, if you have any great recipes, like your grandma's peach cobbler, amazing breakfast casserole or any other recipes you think would be awesome to share with me, I'd love to have them!

Stay tuned to see how to cook book comes along! I told DJ I would put it together and he could give it to me for Christmas. :o)



   

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