My own cookbook

Rosyrain

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Washington, USA
A couple of weeks ago I brainstormed the idea of creating my own cookbook and giving it to my kids somewhere down the road. My mom has been giving me recipes for years for the foods I loved the most growing up. I want to create a book of our favorite recipes and make a scrapbook out of it with stories and such. Have any of you done this for your kids?
 
I have never thought of creating my own cookbook but over the years, apart from all my cookery books and foodie magazines I couldn't bear to part with, I have collected thousands of cuttings, which are all filed in two big thick folders and many smaller ones. All in all the books, folders and magazines take up about 15 feet of shelf space in my kitchen. Apart from these I use OneNote, my phone, my laptop and an external hard drive to save recipes BUT I have ONE folder which contains the recipes I use all the time. That folder could, I suppose, be the basis of my own cookery book but whether my daughter would appreciate it I do not know. She takes after me, although she has only about 20 years worth of collecting as opposed to my 50! She also has a collection of cookbooks and there is only one title in there that we both have. Most of our recipe sharing is done over the internet and I share some of these recipes with my friends as well.
 
I think that's an awesome idea. Something I wish my grandma had done, as she had so many amazing recipes committed to memory, but never really wrote them down. There's things she would make that I can't replicate now, and it's not like I can ask her, either...so that's tough.

I say go ahead with it! I want to do something similar for my daughter, when she's old enough to be interested in cooking herself :)
 
I have folders of hand written recipes and pictures of recipes ,all I need to do is put them in order,my mum is the same so family recipes will be kept ,we have plenty of family recipes from family who are now deceased so they will be kept
 
I have some of my Mum's recipes from the 1940s and 1950s but, no matter how carefully I make them, the food just doesn't seem to taste the same as I remember. I have adapted one (the bread pudding recipe - can't do without bread pudding!) to the point that it hardly resembles her recipe now, and other day when I was looking for a recipe I found one in my Dad's handwriting. That must be from the 1980s, after Mum died. I wish I had Mum's old cookery book from the late 1920s/early 1930s though. I looked everywhere for it after my brother died, but I couldn't find it. There were some lovely recipes in there plus lots of cuttings and handwritten notes. I do have some of my Grandad's old books and one set of encyclopaedias from 1923 is quite awe-inspiring but the recipes are for 40+ people. One day I shall get the books down and go through some of them.
 
We actually have a folder in the computer of recipes that we are cooking. We only document the original recipes like the tomato chicken, cassava cake, mung bean soup, deer meat style (for beef), etc. And I am planning to make a sort of small manual with layout designs for effect. But my husband is suggesting to make a video of how to cook it and maybe if it turns viral in youtube then we would earn money from it. What do you think is the better idea? Making a cooking video takes a lot of time and effort.
 
I've never done any or thought of it but I think it's a great idea and you should pursue it @Rosyrain. Maybe you can team up with @morning glory. If ever I did anything food related it would be a blog. I don't like much paper these days.
 
I too have binders and folders full of recipes I have collected over the years as well as clippings from magazines. I am pretty good at getting rid of the recipes we ended up not liking, but I have a ton that we loved. I think putting them in a scrapbook would be a fun way to preserve them. I am going to get the supplies and start making one.
 
Type it out, go to your nearest office supply and find cool heavy duty paper for covers and get the bindings. Staples used to have a machine you could use to bind them.

Also include your best tips and tricks.
 
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