Thanksgiving has gotten me thinking about how I manage my culinary life using Evernote. This post did a good job of prompting that.
For recipes I often start by pinning recipes on Pinterest as an inbox of sorts, then once I want to use the recipe, I use the web clipper to save it into my Recipes folder. This helps me sort through recipes I want to make and ones I have already made. Often I will pin multiple recipes of a similar genre (pumpkin pies, pumpkin spice lattes etc) in order to see what is the similar ingredients/ratios and adapt accordingly. I do this especially when I’m figuring out how to replace the sugar.
When I cook with Evernote, I used to either use my iPhone, or stick my laptop on my island as I worked. Now I have a bit easier with my iPad on the go.
I always record how I change recipes so I can edit or re-do them later. I really like the ease of which I can share a recipe, a whole notebook etc.
The most useful thing in storing my recipes on Evernote is when I go shopping. I have my grocery lists and meal plan on Evernote, too, which means I have a record of what we eat when. This might seem super anal, and it probably is, but I try to save my mental energy for what’s important. Remembering what we eat isn’t important, but it is helpful to know I’m not forgetting and feeding my husband the same meal every week. We like more variety than that but I don’t want to rely on my brain to recall that info.
Getting back to shopping. I always have my recipes on me in Evernote, which means that if I get suddenly inspired by something I see in the grocery store (which happens often), I can pull up a recipe I have in Evernote (or Pinterest, for that matter) and buy the other ingredients I need.
Simple pimple!
How about you? Do you have a system to manage recipes to help you be more productive?
