Recipes and Cookbooks

If you are like us, you have recipes in every conceivable form—emails, bookmarks in browsers, handwritten recipe cards, print-outs of aspirational recipes, and cookbooks upon cookbooks. Before holiday cooking and baking begin in earnest, think about finally getting a handle on your recipe situation. As you tackle your recipe collection, the first place to start is by taking a hard look at your cookbooks. The most optimistic version of yourself might have bought most of your cookbooks—or perhaps you’ve received cookbooks over the years as gifts or family heirlooms.

The first step, as always, is to use our famous Power Purge to sort through the cookbooks and recipes that are just taking up space. Look through your cookbooks and take photos of any promising recipes before clearing the books out of your kitchen.

Consider moving to a completely digital recipe organization system. Some of us have had excellent luck using Google Drive to keep our recipes organized—whether it’s a spreadsheet of links to recipes from all over the internet or a series of folders where you keep photos and PDFs of recipes sorted by category. We know of some folks who make it a policy to always email themselves recipes with very clear (and searchable!) subject lines.

If you have a variety of recipes on paper and don’t feel compelled to scan them into the digital world, think about using a binder to organize and preserve your recipes. You can use clear plastic sleeves with pockets to protect handwritten recipe cards from drips and splashes. Use a three-hole punch on your recipe printouts and a few tabs to divide your recipes into appetizers, desserts, holiday favorites, and more.

There is no one right way to organize your recipes, so feel empowered to adapt our strategies to fit your needs, usage patterns, and emotional connections.

Spices and Seasonings

When was the last time you spent some quality time tending to your spices? How many of them have long expired, never been used, or have lost their aroma? Before the holiday cooking begins, get your fragrant seasonings organized!

Before you start organizing anything, you need to discard those spices and seasonings that are too old to be useful. While most experts agree that it’s safe to use expired seasonings and spices, you should toss anything that is clumping or just smells off. Pinch a bit of the spice between your fingers and rub them together—if there is little or no fragrance, it’s probably time to replace that container.

Once you are down to those containers of spices and seasonings that are still in good shape, be honest with yourself about which ones you will foreseeably use in your cooking. If you are an adventurous chef who regularly experiments with new types of cuisine, your spices and seasoning needs will be much broader than someone who limits their cooking to tried and true recipes and styles.

Think about what organizational style will streamline your cooking. If you use a wide variety of spices, alphabetizing the containers could save you time searching when you are whipping up a new dish. Some folks have better luck with keeping their top 5 or 10 spices in easy reach, while they store the remainder in a container or cabinet. Spice racks, drawer inserts, or spinning trays can all help you make the most of your space. Whatever way you decide to organize your spices, make sure they are clearly labeled and in a cool, dark place when possible.

Finally, think about those recipes that you make during every holiday season—whether it’s cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving or black-eyed peas on New Year’s—and make a list of herbs and spices to have on hand before the cooking commences!

Baking Ingredients and Tools

The final area to give yourself a holiday head start is with your baking ingredients and supplies. Essentially, you need to take inventory of the supplies you will need for your upcoming baking, whether you are making cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing, pumpkin pies, or the whole range of Christmas cookies, candies, and other sweets. To begin, take EVERYTHING out of the baking section of your kitchen so that you can see what you have, what is expired, what tools need to be refreshed, and which ingredients need a re-stock. Check through our list to help prompt your memory about what you might need in the next few weeks of festivities:

• Flour: All-purpose flour, cake flour, bread flour, gluten-free flour if needed
• Sugars: Granulated sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar (dark and light), other natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup
• Dairy: Butter, eggs, milk, buttermilk, heavy cream
• Flavorings: Vanilla extract, almond extract, cocoa powder or chocolate chips, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon
• Other key ingredients: Shortening, vegetable oil, baking powder, baking soda, yeast, cornstarch
• Supplies: Parchment paper, food coloring, sprinkles, cookie cutters, muffin/cupcake liners

Take a close look at your baking equipment too. If your favorite spatula has taken a beating or you notice your loaf pans are too scraped up to release properly, think about ditching and replacing them before you are up to your elbows in flour!

We hope getting your kitchen whipped into shape now will give you more time to do the things that bring you joy during the holidays! And if you get stuck somewhere in the process, you know you can always call in the Bees to get you back on track!