Goal 51: Cookbook Management (make 5 recipes from each cookbook or discard)

Can I make a confession? I own 56 recipe books, 3 years worth of subscriptions and special issue Canadian Living magazines, as well as hundreds if not thousands of recipes stored on my computer, pinterest and recipe cards.

I know without a doubt that I will never in my lifetime actually be able to make all of these recipes. Which means that I can either choose to never buy another recipe book, or just get really good at choosing which ones are worth it to keep. Guess which one I chose?

Can I make another confession? Every single one of those recipes, unless they are on pinterest, are listed in categorized spreadsheets on my computer. And every time I use a new one I track it and make comments. Weird right?

No, you were right, it's totally weird.

Now that I have made all my confessions you can probably see why I have a goal of making 5 recipes from each cookbook or else getting rid of them. I need more room, and I already have the data!

So for the past 2 years I have not only been tracking which recipes I am using, but also which recipes I am using from each book. Some of them already had been used 5 times before I even started tracking them! Some of them still have not had a single thing made from them. And there are a few stragglers, like the fancy cake decorating book which would only get used once a year in my house anyways, so it gets a free pass.

For me this works really well, because it allows me to add new recipes to my menu plans, and try things I might not have. It also gets me using the bounty I have. We have found some great recipes because of this trend! And I've gotten rid of a few loser cookbooks. Win for all.

I'm not suggesting you sit down and list all of your recipes (unless of course you want to! c'mon, it's kinda fun!) but have you ever thought about those things you have an excess of? Do you ever track (mentally or on paper) how much you use your items? There is a point in de-cluttering that you might feel like you are finished, but are you really?

As far as completing this category I honestly don't know if I will ever be done, because when I get new cookbooks I have to start making them. And plus, that's a lot of new recipes to make. But I have begun to get rid of some books, so I guess that's a start!

Do you have any collections? If so, how do you manage them? Please comment below!