Organizing Your Recipes

While many of us enjoy cooking, it isn't always easy to keep track of our impressive recipe collections. In order to make your recipes easier to find (and not to mention giving your patience a break!), we're going to talk about a few ways you can get your recipes organized.

Recipe Book

Instead of storing your recipes in the "haphazard shoebox" fashion, how about converting them into a nice recipe book? If most of your recipes are on index or recipe cards, a photo album with plastic sleeves may work particularly well for you as long as the card fits comfortably in the slot. If you have quite a large collection of recipes, try obtaining a large family photo album that allows eight to twelve slots per sleeve (front and back). The order you put the cards in is totally up to you, as your recipe book should reflect your preference. Some people prefer to sort based on main dishes, desserts, breads/pastries, beverages, etc., while others prefer alphabetical order.

If you don't have your recipes on cards, or if you're like most people, you might have your recipes on papers and cards of all shapes and sizes. If this is the case, you might want to think about typing them all up and printing them off. After all of your recipes are transferred to this new format, the next step is to get a binder (three ring binders work well) and some tabbed dividers. Label each divider by the category you wish (ie: type of meal, alphabetical order, etc.) and get to work punching holes in your recipe sheets to accommodate the binder's rings. If you prefer, you can purchase plastic sleeves to keep your sheets spill-proof-which is highly recommended to counter those splatters of sauce, batter, or grease that always tend to smudge our favorite recipes.

Whether you use a photo album or a binder, don't be afraid to get creative with your recipe book. Get some construction paper and glue or clip clip pictures from magazines. There's nothing wrong with adding a dash of imagination that might even inspire your cooking!

eRecipe Catalog

The Internet is not only a great place to search through millions of recipes, but it's also handy for storing the ones you already have. Sites like WeGottaEat and OneTSP are free to sign up and allow you to add your own recipes by simply typing them up. Yes, this can be quite tedious if you have a lot of recipes, but just imagine how easy it will be to find a recipe by simply typing in a keyword and clicking "search." You can also browse thorough members' recipes and send recipes to friends and family. Online recipe storage sites are very user friendly, so you don't have to be particularly computer savvy to utilize this great feature. Also, by storing your recipes online you can easily include pictures that would otherwise mean added bulk to your recipe collection.

Software

Say you like the idea of easily searching for and pulling up your recipes, but you aren't too keen on relying upon an Internet connection. You might not want to totally rule out the option of a computerized recipe book. There is a wealth of recipe software available for download on the Internet. Many of them are classed as "freeware," which means that you can download and use the software for free. Some cooking software is available online for purchase, but they do throw in some handy "extras" that are worth the money, such as measurement calculators and converters, meal planning and shopping lists, and nutritional value calculators.

These are just a few ways that you can free up that recipe drawer and simplify the entire task of cooking from a recipe. Best of luck in whichever method you choose to organize your recipes-and happy cooking!

If you're looking for recipes, take a look at the Platinum Recipes Collection. The Platinum Recipes Collection is the Internet's Most Comprehensive Recipes Collection.

Find Unique Ground Beef Recipes

There are many people who need new recipes so they can amaze their family and the guests that come up for dinners. If cooking is a passion for you and you love the look on someone's face when they like the dish that you have prepared, then the internet might just become your next personal teacher and guide. There are so many different websites dedicated to all kinds of recipes. You will not only get the right kind of recipes but you will also be able to get the right kind of cooking tips. There are so many people who have even put up video recipes so the viewer with a passion for cooking can have a more hands on experience. You can also find all kinds of ground beef recipes, pasta recipes and even appetizer and desert recipes on so many sites.

Look for a portal that provides free recipes because you really shouldn't have to pay for a good recipe. There are a number of free online websites that make their money not by selling the recipes but actually from the sponsors that come because of the increased traffic. But why would a recipe site have more traffic? Because it has good recipes! The more people love a recipe the more they keep coming back for more. There are also many sites which will provide you a recipe if you will ask for it which is even more interesting. A lot of people go some place for a vacation, to a foreign land and they are served some food that they cannot get back at home. Recipe portals are great to find those exotic foreign recipes too and you can easily cook them at home by getting the right ingredients. But in foreign recipes it is important not to make substitutions and take the recipe as it is.

Try out the recipe on your own first before allowing guests or friends to taste it. Cook the recipe from a small amount of ingredients and see if it really tastes the way it should. If not you can always tweak the recipe a bit or find another recipe completely. You should also check out the comments left by other people below the recipes that you enjoy. There are so many people who try those recipes and they will comment about how their experience was. If they have provided any helpful suggestions or tips you should heed them since they have tried it already. You should also leave your own comments and suggestions about the recipe once you have tried it to help out other people who try out the same recipes. If there are any tips that you want to leave for them you will be doing a great service in return for a free recipe.

If you are looking for BBQ chicken recipes you can find a whole variety of multicultural recipes online and you will be amazed at how much those recipes can be adapted to your own style of cooking.

For more information on recipes check out http://theorangedragon.com/alternative-ground-beef-recipes/ and http://theorangedragon.com/wonderful-bbq-chicken-recipes/

How to Invent Recipes Yourself

Perhaps you think that creating your own recipes and using a recipe search engine do not go together but you might find a recipe search helpful if you want to make recipes up. Most ingredients which taste good together are already combined in other recipes.

You can do a recipe search by cuisine, by ingredient or by course. Perhaps you want inspiration for Indian recipes, Italian recipes, pasta recipes, salad recipes, or appetizers. The beauty of using a recipe search is that you can choose exactly the kind of meal you want to use as your inspiration.

How to Adapt a Recipe

If you are capable of following a recipe, you are capable of creating your own. The best way to start off is by tinkering with an easy recipe that you know you like.

You might have a favorite meat or fish dish. How would that dish taste if you added some Thai spices or served it with pasta and sauce instead of with the baked potatoes or rice you normally use?

You can combine your favorite parts of different recipes to make one new one. For example, if you have a favorite recipe for grilled chicken and a winning white wine sauce recipe, you can use a recipe search to find the perfect vegetable side dish to complete this meal.

Of course, a recipe search engine is not capable of creating brand new recipes itself but you can adapt recipes you find and make them your own.

Tips for Creating Recipes

Do not expect every creation to be amazing. It can happen that you use a flavor in a recipe and find that it just does not work out. If that should happen, just chalk it up to experience and try a new approach the next time.

Rather than create a new spice blend and rub it over a whole chicken, why not make a new spicy sauce and cook the chicken separately. That way, if the spice blend comes out wrong, you have not ruined an entire chicken.

The only things required for inventing recipes yourself is a creative streak and a bit of bravery. You do not need to be a gourmet chef or have extensive food knowledge.

Start simply, rather than attempting to create an elaborate meal from scratch. This might mean you change the kind of cheese in a recipe and a few of the vegetables. It might mean you use Chinese spices in a fish dish instead of the Italian spices in the recipe.

Perhaps you have tried this already. Perhaps you have been partway through a recipe before and suddenly realized you do not have one of the ingredients. Maybe you substituted the ingredient with something you did have. This is a kind of recipe creation because your meal was original and different from the recipe.

Using a recipe search engine is the best way to get started because you can explore different kinds of recipes and do a recipe search by ingredient if you have an idea of what you want to use.

Copyright (c) 2009 Christine Szalay Kudra

Whether you are a busy mom like me or someone who loves to try new foods and new flavor combinations, you can try your hand at adapting existing recipes. Once you have found a recipe using the best recipe search engine you can get to work, tweaking the ingredients or add new flavors. This is how delicious meals are invented and you can have plenty of fun along the way.

Start your search for dinner now at: http://www.recipedirectory.org

Guide to Standardized Recipe

Standardized Recipe Ideology

A standardized recipe refers to a particular standard-of-use of certain metrics in cooking - Standard sizes, time, temperature, amount, etc. Abiding by this rule creates uniformity in kitchen produce, whether or not it is tangible or intangible.

The idea of a standardized recipe is definitely not alien to many of us anymore. In fact, it has been very widely used around the globe and there are certain metrics to a standardized recipe that we must follow. In the kitchen, a standardized recipe is a crucial part of standardizing dishes, ingredients and elements in a restaurant that might lead to gain or loss during operational hours. Certain restaurants benchmark standardized recipes in their kitchen, some do not. There are pros and cons of using standardized recipes.

Benefits of having a Standardized Recipe


Creates an absolute standard in kitchen produce and cooking activities.
Allows smooth transition between different kitchen staffs.

Maintains food quality and food standards during kitchen operational hours.

Guiding tool for newcomers to the kitchen.

Refresh minds of kitchen staff after some time. (Eliminating guesswork)

Referral material should there be any disputes.

Base for costing when kitchen costs are calculated.
Be a great guide to implementing a new menu should there be any need.

Planning and costing purposes when a particular event needs accounting/kitchen control auditing.

Prevents raw food leftovers (with good Kitchen Control)

Cons of having a Standardized Recipe



Inconvenient - This can be from the Head Chef keeping the list of standardized recipe in his room and had it locked or having three big books of standardized recipe and need kitchen staff to flip over one by one to get everything done. Inconvenience is the number ONE factor that led to kitchen staff not using standardized recipes.

Time consuming - This is also one of the reasons why standardized recipe are not followed. During peak hours, a kitchen do not have time to waste, and every second counts.

Better variations - Some Chefs prefer to follow their centric of taste, some are just worship their own believes. This could cause a problem when there is no proper training provided and Kitchen Control.

Rules are meant to be broken - There are always different people/consumers around your restaurant. What's important, the customers. When standardized recipes are not tested regularly on the restaurant, inaccurate information may be provided in the standardized recipe. Solution: Leave room or space for food/cooking variation. This usually happen when the Head Chef is not properly organized or trained well for his position.

A secret no more - Some restaurateurs or Chefs frown on making a book of standardized recipe because they want to protect their food knowledge. This is a classic perception: Someone comes by, takes all the recipe and leave the restaurant after a month.

When it's gone, it's really gone - At certain times in a restaurant, a piece of recipe sheet can get lost. When it's lost, there will be a slight havoc in understanding as the Head Chef needs to take action immediately. On another situation, it can also be 'stolen' or 'retrieved' as management of the restaurant changes, and/or someone steals the particular information, or the restaurant faces mishaps like kitchen on fire.

Standardized recipes do not necessarily have certain standards that you need to follow. There are many ways to actually personalize your standardized recipe, keep them into your book and use them for referrals in the future. Alternatively, you can also save them into your computer, and organize them well. Whatever it is, standardized recipes serve good purposes in a kitchen - Take the time to actually follow the steps, and you might just get happier guests/customers.

There are three (3) common ways of writing a recipe:


Paragraph-style recipes
List-style recipes
Action-style recipes

Paragraph Style Recipes This way of writing a recipe is classic - And they serve their own purpose in writing that way. There are many pros and cons to this kind of writing style, and we'd like to leave it up to you to figure it out. Anyway, here's an example of a paragraph-style written recipe:

Put your skillet on the pan and turn on the heat to low. Now take a bowl, crack 2 fresh eggs inside and add in some salt and pepper. Next, grab a whisk and start beating it until it's mixed or quite fluffy. When your skillet is hot enough, add in 1 tbsp of oil, and swirl the oil around. You'll notice the oil runs faster on hot pans. When your pan and oil is hot enough, turn on the heat to high and pour in your eggs. Leave the heat on high until your eggs (at the side of the pan) forms a solid texture. At this time, reduce your heat to low. When your egg is cooked enough, flip it over and top it off with some ikan kering! Voilá!

Paragraph-style recipes can work at certain extent. Be sure to choose your methods of writing well.

List-style Recipes The list-style writing of recipes is one of the easiest, practical and most common ways of writing a recipe. This method consist of two sections - The header, and footer. Header consist of different elements such as recipe title, temperature, yield, time, etc, while the footer contains methods to use these ingredients. An example of list-style recipes:

-Eggs with Ikan Kering 2 no Eggs

-1 tbsp Oil

-Ikan kering


Heat up your pan in low heat, crack two eggs into a bowl and add seasoning. Whisk well.
When your pan is hot enough, add in your oil and wait until it's hot.
Pour it in and turn your heat to high, until you see the sides of your eggs are actually solid in texture.
Reduce your heat to low, and cook the eggs well. Flip over.
Top it off with some crumbled ikan kering and voilá!

Action-style recipes Action style recipes has been known as the killer way of listing recipes, amount, methods and ingredients in a very organized and well-mannered. The first step will usually contain ingredients and methods limited to only a particular food preparation, and the list continues and combines with step two and three. Here's an example:

Action-style recipes can be very directive and you can add in more information to your liking. Choose which is best for you and your audience, then pick the right one and give them value.

Standard Elements in a Standardized Recipe Although we may see certain standard recipe metrics in a standardized recipe that may be both relevant and irrelevant to you, there are certain practical usage to it, and customizing your standardized recipe a good way to go when you need to emphasize certain recipe metrics in a recipe sheet. In a way, always think of your end-users rather than yourself.

Common Recipe Elements in a Standardized Recipe


Ingredients
Temperature
Equipments & Utensils Needed
Amount
Method
Media (Picture/Video)

These metrics are the basics - But what makes a better Standardized Recipe is to actually explain in detail what is the outcome, what should you avoid, what should you do and not do, etc. While these may be too long to squeeze into your methods area or the miscellaneous box in the action style recipe, you should include a section to it.

Recommended Standard Recipe Elements to Add These recommended standard recipe elements are absolutely optional and should only be included at selected times. Note that most recipes require only the simplest of steps to take, and portrayal of information should be as concise, clear and to the point as possible.



Taste - At what degree should this dish taste like, and how you can stretch its seasoning properties from there.

Precautions and Warnings - Precautions while handling these food mix or cooking methods.

Tips & Advice - Best way to beef up preparation methods and cook well without the need for practical training.

What to do while waiting - Important steps or methods to follow or take while waiting cooking or preparing a food ingredient or food ingredient mixes, etc.

Alternatives - Alternatives to this cooking method, or that food ingredient which might not be available in certain areas of the world. Should there be any alternative ways to do it, it should be pointed out.

Halal status - Halal status is very important. Certain foods are pre-packed in a non-halal manner, or foods containing pork-based materials used in preparation or alcohol usage. For example, rum flavoring. Comes in halal and non-halal.

Garnishing recommendations - This should be included and portrayed after recipe methods.

Miscellaneous information - This information should be portrayed at the very bottom of the recipe, stating ways on how to prepare and cut this meat, or measure the intensity of cooking in the meat. This could also serve as a section where you throw in a combination of Taste (No. 1) and Tips & Advice (No. 3).

Von Cook is the Chef de Partie and writer of Food Central, a busy kitchen in Malaysia cooking for Royalties. Von Cook has ventured to almost everything of 10 Head Chef's 20 or more years of food and cooking experience and is sharing his food knowledge now with you.

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Make Money Writing Recipes

Could you make some money by writing recipes?

You don't need me to tell you that top TV chefs like Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith have made MILLIONS from selling their recipes. Delia is in fact the UK's best selling cookery author having sold 21 million books... imagine if you had a pound or two from each of those!

What you might not know is that Delia Smith started out as a humble recipe writer. Her first piece featured kipper p?t?, beef in beer and cheesecake - an exotic dish back in the 60s! So how could you follow in the footsteps of the famous cookery writers and make some money from selling your recipes?

There are a LOT of recipes out there. So you need to be quite smart if you want to sell them. Here are a few tips:

* Your recipe ideas need to be original. Never try and sell recipes that you've read in another book. Traditional old family recipes are great for selling - as long as they are original. Or recipes you've found when on holiday abroad.

Recipes that are tasty-but-cheap are also in big demand right now.

* A clever idea is to take an existing recipe and give a unique twist and so make it your own. For example, take a classic recipe and convert it into a healthier, low fat one that is just as good. Or make it suitable for those with a food intolerance.

* Before you try selling anything, try and have a range of related recipes so that if one sells you have others ready and waiting to offer. Recipes for entire meals (or dinner parties) are also a good idea.

* Research your recipe clearly. We've all tried recipes from magazines and so on that the writer has obviously never made. They usually turn out to be a disaster. So make sure you ACTUALLY try your recipes for family meals and so on to make sure they work.

* Make your recipe sound interesting. Create a story behind it that will help with selling. For example, my children wouldn't touch fruit... until I created this recipe for them... now they love it!

So then, how could you make money from recipes:

* Women's magazines. Need lots and lots of recipes. For example, Good To Know pays ?25 for any recipes they use. Details here: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/471694/Share-your-recipes-with-Cake-corner

* Book publishers. Sometimes buy recipes for collections.

* Sell on eBay. Create a collection of recipes and try selling them using eBay classified ads. It's easy and cheap. (To do this you'll need to pop your recipes on a CD to sell them.)

* Classified ads. in magazines. If you try this be sure to create recipes which will appeal to the type of people who read the magazine.

* Publish your own eBook.

* Sell it to food product manufacturers. Many manufacturers print recipe ideas on their product packaging and are often short of new ideas as all the old favourites have been used up. (Make sure that their brand is actually used in the recipe though!)

One last thing, you can also send recipes in to COMPETITIONS to win prizes instead of a fixed fee. Hormel

Foods who produce the famous Spam have an annual Cook of the Year competition.

Mark Hempshell is a freelance writer and the editor of WRITE FOR PROFIT NEWSLETTER. You can get more tips and advice on making money from writing on his blog: http://www.markhempshell.blogspot.com