{Seasonal} Recipe Organization

I have lots of cookbooks. They make me very happy. If you’re anything like me, you may “read” your cookbooks for fun too. That’s not weird is it? You do that too? Still, as much as I love having all that great food “literature” around I rarely actually cook from my cookbooks. I’m conflicted over this…believe me. But I find so many great recipes on other blogs, pinterest, etc. that I don’t get around to the cookbooks that often.

But you know what was irking me even more than the cookbooks? The magazines! Now, I don’t have boxes upon boxes of them because I’m a decent purger, but I was really agonizing over what to do with the ones I had.  Magazines are so wonderful at highlighting seasonal recipes. I love that! It becomes a moot point, however, if you come across that fall baking magazine in mid-April. You know, the one with all those tantalizing apple recipes. So you put away the magazine once again only to rediscover it next February. You get what I’m saying.

So, I came up with a solution. I’m just a little pumped. What is it?  A seasonal recipe binder. Yup, that’s right. How did I not think of this before?

Here is how I did it.

I grabbed a pretty binder from Target (where else?). See…pretty!

And some tabbed index dividers…

Then I found these super cool printable calendar pages. I LOVE them. They could not be more perfect for this project. They are a bonus for me because I can use the calendar to organize blog posts if I want!

Then I just attached each printed calendar page to the index divider pages (via one of the kids’ glue sticks….high tech, I know) and slipped them into my binder.

Throw in some page protecters and I’m good to go! I just tear out the recipes I want to keep and file them under the appropriate month.

Now I have the perfect place to store all those recipes I have floating around. I’m so excited! I may even have to buy a magazine (or three) to celebrate;-)

Do you have any great recipe organizing tips? Now I’m on the hunt for a solution that will encourage me to use my cookbooks on a more frequent basis!