52 Weeks of Organising – Recipes – Part 2

I began my great mealing/recipe project a few weeks ago and it is travelling along nicely.  Yesterday I took the next step of organising my new Recipe Binder.  It isn’t flash because there’s no spare money for flash binder and dividers around here.  I bought a lever arch file, some flouro plastic dividers with an index page at the front and a box of 100 plastic sleeves.  I LOVE plastic sleeves – just needed to say that!

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I simply wrote out my categories on the index page, slipped some recipes into plastic sleeves and I was done.  The recipes are either from Mum which means they arrived by e-mail or I’ve typed them out.  If it came by e-mail I’ve just printed the e-mail – not time to muck around!  For all the others, because I’m doing Weight Watchers, I either get them from the Weight Watchers website or I type them into the Recipe Builder in E-Tools which then works out the points for the recipe and enables the recipe to be put into my Pro Points Tracker.  This gives them some uniformity as they all have the same sort of formatting on the site.

They are all in individual plastic sleeves so they can go to kitchen and back again easily and I’m adding recipes as I do them and they are “successful”.  Two new ones are being added tonight from this weekend – Sweet and Sour Braised Steak (Slow Cooker) and Banana and  Malteaser Muffins.

I’m getting back into the good routine I used to have of planning the meals for the upcoming week on the Saturday, making a shopping list and doing the weekly shop by Sunday.  I’ve also baked today to school lunches (so I’m feeling particularly accomplished!)

Now for Laura’s questions this week:

Questions to ponder:
1.  Let’s talk stuff!  What have you tossed out this week?

I have tossed coffee cups, lots of paper and quite a few odds and ends from back deck (when I was preparing the Valentine’s Night Dinner).  This included our hermit crab gear – the last hermit crab died over 2 years ago!
2.  Have you ever regretted something you’ve gotten rid of?  Why?

The only things I regret getting rid of are the books I had as a child because I would have dearly loved to pass them on to my boys and my niece (she would probably appreciate the “Little House” series and possibly “Nancy Drew” more than the boys would!).  I’ve got one large volume of Frances Hodgson Burnett with three of her books in it that Eric has read from cover to cover and loved.  It may be time for my niece to borrow it!
3.  How tempted are you to rush out and pick up pretty organizing containers first?

I’m tempted but money is an issue so I’m forcing myself to wait.  I’ve saved the link to this bookcase type thing from Ikea which I would like to use in our entry way horizontally as part of a launch pad but I have to work out where to put the cupboard that is there presently as well as save up for it.  Simply having more clear spaces is helping me to be more organised!

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