The joy of a recipe notebook
And other ways of deciding what's for dinner
Hello!
This winter, I started a recipe notebook.
Before, my recipes were scattered across cookbooks, bookmarked posts on Instagram, my camera roll, a large number of open tabs in my web browser, a seemingly infinite number of food blogs, the NYT Cooking app, and most precious but least convenient, a manila envelope containing family recipes and things I’d printed out.
A lot of people rotate the same ten meals until they feel like they’re in a rut. I had the opposite problem: I never made the same thing twice. Because I could never remember what I’d made, much less what we’d loved, and my family recipes were out of sight, out of mind.
The variety wasn’t the problem, necessarily. Dinner is important to me. I love cooking, baking, eating, grocery shopping, new-to-me flavors and ingredients, and the seasonal cycles of fruits and vegetables at their best. I love spending an hour in my kitchen to wind down on a weeknight—or three to pass a Sunday afternoon.
The problem was the hour or more spent scrolling, searching, and flipping through books every time I sat down to do my weekly menu planning—and the inefficiency of always making something new. But we had a very busy 2021 and 2022, and the idea of creating a system seemed like more work than continuing on with the status quo.
Then, at the end of last year, we visited a few of my French in-laws and I noticed that both matriarchs had handwritten recipe notebooks. Especially cool, one of them also had her mother’s two notebooks (one for savory and one for sweet)—from the days of cooking for a large family and whichever neighbors and townspeople might stop by on any given day. (I was slightly antisocial during that visit, paging through the heirlooms and taking photos of the simple, fresh recipes that are still central to French cooking.)
Upon our return back to Boston, I had the solution to my problem.
Over the course of several long winter evenings, I got my recipes in order. I sorted through the contents of the manila envelope, my screenshots, and my open tabs. I pulled out favorites, family classics, and new things I was excited to make, and tossed/deleted the rest.
Once I got into the process, I remembered a lot of favorites that my parents make but that I didn’t have the recipes for, so I asked them to send those. My dad has made his pesto so many times that he texted it from memory! Some highlights from my mom include her blueberry muffins, as well as my grandma’s coffee cake and legendary oatmeal cookies.
You might like a digital tool, you might like notecards in a box. For me, what works is a regular lined notebook with a little pocket in the back cover. This is the exact one I use. I picked it out of my shelf-of-blank-notebooks-I-couldn’t-resist-buying (anyone else have this?) because it’s bound to get thick and will need the elastic closure. I use the back pocket to keep scribbled menus from holidays and dinner parties so I can refer to those for future gatherings. (I also have a party notebook, but that’s another post for another day.)
I try to only add things to the notebook that I’ve made and loved, but there are some exceptions where I got a bit aspirational. If I never make the Linzer Torte… oh well. I also use it as a place to put very basic recipes that I make all the time but can never remember the specifics of: rice, boiled eggs of various doneness, etc.
Since I add things in the order I find/receive them, I also numbered the pages and created a table of contents in the inside jacket. There’s no other categorization, though sometimes a fun pattern will emerge. My mom’s cranberry cornbread recipe ended up opposite Alison Roman’s cornbread recipe. My dad’s college friend’s Italian mother’s spaghetti sauce ended up opposite my Boston friend’s Italian honeymoon bolognese.
I also sorted through my cookbook collection and… didn’t get rid of many, but at least donated the ones I’ve never made a single recipe from. I haven’t missed them. Since making my recipe notebook, I have only bought one new cookbook (okay, two, but this one was a gift from my husband) and cook more out of my notebook and the cookbooks I already own.
This isn’t a perfect system, but it has reduced a lot of the noise when it comes to deciding what’s for dinner. I still use the NYT Cooking app and discover things in my Instagram feed. To actually solve the problem of remembering what we make and like, every day in my planner I write down what we have for dinner that night, or which restaurant if we go out. Then I can just flip back through a few pages of what’s essentially become a dinner diary and repeat things within the same season.
What do you think—do you have a recipe notebook or would you make one? Let me know in the comments how you organize your recipes and how you decide what’s for dinner. I’d love to hear your tips!
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Listening: Jamie Beck’s “Rainy Days” playlist
It’s been grey and drizzling for days in Boston (great cooking weather), so to match the mood, I’ve been listening to this while walking on my errands. Jamie makes the best playlists that inspire you to slow down and do something creative.
Reading: “A Field Guide to Preserving” on the Kitchen Projects Substack.
I aspire to be someone who preserves summer produce, and this post introduces you to a ton of ways to do so besides jam. I’m now doing deeper dives on each method so I can decide what to pursue as we move into fruit season. As a bonus, I also recently came across this tutorial for preserved lemons which piqued my interest.
Watching: Life in a Cottage Garden on BritBox.
Yep, another gardening show! Maybe it’s the fact that it’s spring and my city apartment doesn’t have so much as a fire escape to put pots on, but I’m deep into gardening tv right now and very happy about it. This series follows the host through all four seasons in her garden and there are very cute cameos from her dogs.
Making: Quinoa and roasted mini pepper salad from kalememaybe on Instagram.
This is a favorite weeknight dinner that qualifies to go into my recipe notebook because digging through my screenshots and then unlocking my phone and pinch-zooming every two minutes to read the next step… is just not working.
I’ve always wanted to be able to sketch, so I found this free channel from Northern Kentucky University called The Drawing Database, where they teach you to sketch starting with the very basics. I’ve only completed this lesson so far, but I love it and it’s fun to be a beginner at something.
Buying: Snacks!
A few groceries that have been on heavy rotation at our house lately. These are all available at Whole Foods but also probably other places.
Purely Elizabeth granola. My favorite flavors are Original, Blueberry Hemp Ancient Grain, and Cranberry Pecan Ancient Grain.
Good Culture cottage cheese. I love that cottage cheese is having a moment; it’s a childhood favorite of mine. Their single-serve packs with fruit compote and chia are a delicious, high-protein snack.
Tony’s Chocolonely Dark Chocolate Almond Sea Salt big bar. I always have one of these in the pantry. My only complaint is that they don’t make enough dark chocolate flavors.
365 brand Amelie Mango. I find most dried mango too sweet (even the unsweetened kind!) and this one is perfectly tart for my taste.
I hope you’re cooking something good this week!
xx Jane
This newsletter includes a few affiliate links. I like to shop small and don’t exclusively feature brands that are part of an affiliate program, so not all links will earn me a commission. But some will! If you plan to buy something featured in this newsletter, using my link will help support the time and love I put into writing these for you. I appreciate your support so much!
We have a binder for saving Hello Fresh recipes that we’ve tried and liked. It’s great for breaks between deliveries when we need to come up with something to cook for dinner. I don't like cooking, so I have exactly one recipe I like to make that’s saved as a screenshot on my phone.
On the other hand, my partner loves to cook, so I might get him a recipe notebook as a gift!