I’m sure your cookbook shelves are bending under the weight of volumes, just like mine. If I asked how often you actually cook from them, you might avert your eyes and try to change the subject—especially if your partner, who frequently remarks on the size of your collection, is nearby.
It isn’t that you don’t want to use these books; you do. The real problem is remembering what’s inside each one. No matter how thorough the indexes, it’s tedious to open every book in search of, say, “Brussels sprouts” after a trip to the market on a chilly, sunny Saturday.
6 easy tips to get more from your cookbooks
It’s a shame to let all that knowledge and inspiration go unused. Here are six practical ways to make your cookbooks more accessible and actually cook from them more often:
- Use sticky tabs to mark recipes that appeal to you, and flip through your collection from time to time to keep the ideas fresh.
- Create a simple reference: on an index card for each book, list the recipes you want to try with page numbers. Slip that card into the front of the book for instant access. This also helps you decide whether a book deserves a permanent spot on your shelf.
- Photograph or scan recipes you want to try and save the images in folders on your computer, grouped by book or dish type. A mobile scanning app makes this fast and keeps everything searchable; you can even generate a PDF for each book if you prefer.
- Keep a top 10 list of dishes you want to cook now, with notes about which cookbook each recipe comes from. Limiting the list keeps it practical and prevents it from becoming overwhelming.
- Choose a different cookbook each month and challenge yourself to cook a realistic number of recipes from it before switching to the next one. This focused approach helps you explore each book more fully.
- Consider using a cookbook cataloging service like Eat Your Books, which indexes thousands of cookbooks, magazines, and blogs. It lets you reproduce your collection online so you can search for recipes, bookmark ones you want to try, and track what you’ve cooked. It’s a useful tool for anyone with a large collection.
Join the conversation!
How do you make the most of your cookbook collection? Do you follow a particular system, or do you cook more randomly? If you don’t have a system, what’s your biggest challenge?
Disclosure: The founder of Eat Your Books, Jane Kelly, converted my trial membership to a complimentary lifetime membership when I first joined in 2010. When this post originally appeared, I arranged a membership giveaway. All opinions are my own.
This post was first published in March 2014 and updated in January 2016.