My Revamped Recipe Binder & Magnetic Menu Board

A few years ago I bought a beautiful binder and tabs from Target to organize all the recipes I'd printed from the internet or ripped from magazines.

This was before my Pinterest addiction took hold.

Before I began browsing blogs with thousands of delicious recipes.

Before long, my recipe binder was brimming with clippings and print-offs and recipes I received from my lovely mother and mother-in-law. And for a girl that loves homogeneity (only in my organization projects, y'all--I'm all for non-conformity in people!), this was a no go.

It was high time for a recipe binder revamp. Lucky for you, I'm also sharing my printable templates, so you can organize your own recipes, too! Here's how.

1. Remove all recipes from the binder. Holy smokes, I had A LOT:

2. Split recipes into 10 categories: Poultry, Beef, Seafood, Pasta, Pork, Starters, Sides, Soups, Desserts, and Breakfast. Label binder tabs accordingly.

3. Create a template and begin the arduous task of typing out all those recipes. (Remember all the ones you printed from the internet? Good thing is you can look them up and copy/paste the ingredients & instruction into Word.) 

I matched my templates to the colors of the binder tabs. Because I was able to eliminate the images or any unnecessarily wordy instructions, typing out the recipes allowed me to majorly condense the huge pile of papers--over 30 pages of chicken recipes, for example, was cut down to 5 double-sided pages in my new binder. However, retyping the recipes is very time consuming, so I recommend spreading out the process over a few weeks. Whenever you have a little spare time, just type away. I watched a lot of Netflix as I typed & formatted the recipes. Multitasking for the win! Now whenever I find a new favorite recipe in a magazine or on the internet, I just add it to the template & print the new pages.

Here are my recipe templates for each category: Poultry, Beef, Seafood, Pasta, Pork, Starters, Sides, Soups, Desserts, Breakfast.

3. Create "Recipe Index" pages for each category in the binder. Print & use your cookbooks to fill out. 

This way, when you're menu planning, you won't limit yourself to the recipes collected in your binder--you'll also have a list of ones from your cookbooks! I'm the type that never remembers a recipe (even if I've made the meal 20 times), so I always need to grab my cookbooks when whipping up a meal--thus, having the page number at my finger tips is so helpful! And sometimes I honestly forget about the delicious dishes in my books--this sheet helps ensure that I don't.

Want your own? Download the recipe indexes for each category here: Poultry, Beef, Seafood, Pasta, Pork, Starters, Sides, Soups, Desserts, Breakfast.

4. Create "Recipes to Try" index for the front of the binder. Print & Laminate. Use dry erase marker & fill with recipes from Pinterest or elsewhere that you want to try, but haven't yet typed up. (I always like to taste test before I commit to reformatting & printing out the recipes). Since I pin so many tasty-looking dishes to Pinterest each month, I often forget some of the yummies--so this is a way of reminding myself to make these!

Download the "Recipes to Try" printable by clicking here!

5. See Megan's adorable menu planning calendar on her blog. 

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Instantly know that you must make your own. Buy printable magnetic sheets at Staples and create your own magnets on Word to fit the color scheme of your kitchen. Be sure to make some "New" magnets so that you can test out some of those recipes on your "Recipes to Try" list! Print onto magnet sheets and cut out.

Plan out your monthly menu. (Yes, this month's menu is easy because we're honeymooning next week (!!!!!!!!!!!) so we're obviously eating out then, and before/after we go, I don't feel like dealing with tons of dishes.

Pop your board on your fridge with velcro 3M Command Strips and admire it from every angle.

I'll be sharing my recipe for cream-topped tilapia next week! It's delish :) Ryan prefers the BBQ salmon, though, and I'm not a big salmon fan, so I just make my own fish on salmon nights.

I especially love staring at our new menu board from this angle--you can see how it matches the colors in our gallery wall (and in the prints to the left of the fridge). Please ignore the pile of dishes:

6. While at Staples buying magnetic sheets, also buy 10-pack of Martha Stewart secure top sheet protectors in this lovely aqua/emerald-ish color. Place extra meal magnets in pockets and put in the back of your recipe binder for easy access when meal planning.

7. Admire your lovely, svelte new recipe binder! Tuck it lovingly on the shelf next to your cookbooks.

Are you inspired to DIY a menu board now? We've only been using ours for the past three weeks or so, but I'm already in love--it's way better than my old system in which I'd plan for 2 weeks and write it out on a dry erase board. This way, I can easily shift around the magnets if plans change!

And I'm loving my new recipe book as well--it's way more organized, and no longer stuffed full of papers. The recipe indexes and "Recipes to Try" list also help me remember the meals I want to make from Pinterest & from my cookbooks! This could also be a fun gift for others--you could type up the family recipes and pair them with pictures to give to your mama, for example! (Or if you're a mama yourself, do the same and gift it to your son or daughter--especially if they're off to college soon and will be cooking on their own! Or gift it to a new daughter-in-law! The possibilities are endless).

Linking up to Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now:

And Weekend Wrap-Up at Tatertots & Jello!

Head to both of those fabulous blogs to check out all of the other cool projects!

On the menu, week five

Last week's new recipes were a mixed bag. One new fave, one big fail, and one so-so.


Let's start with the good! Crispy Cheddar Chicken. It was SO. GOOD. The topping was delicious, the chicken as nice and moist, and the sauce was a breeze to whip up! I forgot to take a picture of the finished dish, but here's the chicken before I popped it in the oven:


My only change: I halved the recipe since it served 4 and we're only 2. The halved recipe called for one sleeve of Ritz crackers. I found I had a ton of extra cracker crumbs left over, and sadly I couldn't save them for future use since they'd gotten raw chicken on them (and there was shredded cheese interspersed with the crumbs, too). So I would use a half a sleeve for 2 people, then crush up more if needed.


Now on to the fail. It was the bowtie pasta with feta, veggies, & cream. I think that I screwed this one up somehow, but it ended up tasting really nasty. The noodles were sort of...sweaty. They had a strange taste. Maybe I let them linger too long in the boiling water? I dunno. I made a variation of this a few weeks back as a quick side, and it was so easy and delicious that I figured this would be the same! Alas, it was not....but look at how tasty it looks when others make it!


And now the so-so: melt in your mouth chicken breasts.


I liked this one, but Ryan wasn't a fan. He ended up scraping the topping off the chicken. I enjoyed it, but it was basically Miracle Whip, parmesan cheese, and some salt and pepper, so in a way it was kinda just like hot mayo, haha. The meat itself was very moist and delicious, but obviously that's just the cooking method, not really the sauce or the recipe...So it seems like I won't be making this one again, especially since the crispy cheddar chicken was super delicious!


This week, I'm sticking to a lot of familiar recipes and only trying out one new things...BORING, I know, but I'm facing some busy times in school for the next few weeks, so I want things at home to be easier. As always, I have class on Wednesday nights, so I don't make dinner.


Monday, March 12: Fish sticks & mac n cheese! Gotta love kindergarten-style dinners!


Tuesday, March 13: Orange chicken and chow mein


Thursday, March 15: Turkey chili


Friday, March 16: Chili leftovers


Saturday, March 17: Paprika chicken with noodles. This is my one new recipe, selected from Rachael Ray's Look & Cook book. I hope it's a winner!


Sunday, March 18: Breakfast for dinner. I have a mad pancake craving now.


What are you making this week?

A memo station for our dining room

We have boring blonde cabinets in our kitchen. Since we're renters, it's not something we can change. And since our kitchen opens up to our dining room, I see the blonde cabinets every time I sit down for a meal at our table. I was getting a little tired of looking at the back of our blah island cabinet, so I decided to spruce it up a little.

First, I brainstormed. I wanted the space to have a function. What did I need in the dining/kitchen areas? (You know, besides a Kitchenaid Mixer, a Margaritaville blender, beautiful vintage Pyrex, and all the other things on my kitchen wish list that are lovely but can't really help with the cabinets).

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After my daydreaming about material goods ended, it came to me. Not only was I tiring of the blonde cabinets, but I was also getting annoyed with digging through my cookbooks to find recipes that I frequently make. I do mark them with post-it notes, but I also mark recipes I want to make in the future, and I have so many cookbooks that I often forget where a recipe is from. So I thought, why not make a little memo station where I could keep a list of where to find those cookbook recipes? And I could also stash recipe print-offs in there and before transferring them to my recipe binder! Perfect!

Enter iHeartOrganizing. I hit up Jen’s fab blog for her free “Family Recipe Tracker” printable (get one here). I just filled out the form to keep track of where all my favorite real-life (aka not Pinterest or Epicurious or Recipes.come) recipes come from.

Next I turned to organizing maven Martha for her fun new line of office supplies from Staples. I’d been droooooling over the whole line for weeks, so it was great to finally find a reason to buy something :) Here are some of my favorites:

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I got two of the Blue Shagreen Double Pockets. Love the color, and the price was good because I snatched them up with a 40% coupon and used Staples Rewards money that I gained from their ink recycling program. I measured to get them centered, marked lightly on the cabinets with pencil to match up the spots, then used command strips to adhere them to the back of the cabinet (even though they come with a heavy-duty adhesive already attached to the folder—again, since we’re renters, I didn’t want the folders to stick forever). I popped my recipe references in one of the folders, and placed our Freezer Inventory sheets (also by iHeartOrganizing) in the other folder. I laminated that printable so I can use wet erase markers to update the list as we use up our frozen foods!

Then I decided the cabinet still needed some cheer. So I traced pennants onto some bright scrapbook paper, cut them out, taped them to baker’s twine, and tied the banner on to two command hooks that were already on the cabinet (I used them to string up tinsel at Christmastime.)

Finally, I added a mini bulletin board (made of fabric-covered styrofoam, just like this one) to the side of the cabinet so that I could pin up my grocery list and any coupons. I popped the our grocery list notepad in one of the double folders so that it's handy whenever I need to make a new list.

I love how sunny and fun the cabinet is now, and that it serves a purpose. Whenever I make my weekly meal plans, I just grab the recipe index, my recipe binder, and of course pull up Pinterest. It makes it so easy for me to pick out what to make now that I have an inventory of my favorite cookbook recipes. And if I pick out any printed out recipes from my binder, I just snag the pages and slip them in a pocket. Easy peasy!

Have you taken on any small projects with big impact lately? And what Martha products are on your I must have this! list?

On the menu, week four

This week's meal plan contains a lot of recipes I've been excited to try! But before I share them, I'll first recap what I made last week. As usual, there were some switch-ups as I adjusted the plan--sometimes I just get too busy and resort to a more familiar or easy recipe.


On Monday, I made Cider cream chicken with cous cous. As usual, it was delicious! It's an old favorite of ours that never fails to disappoint.


See the link above for the recipe.

On Tuesday, I FINALLY made cheddar beer chicken! And it was worth the wait. I used the leftovers from Sunday's dish, broccoli cheese soup (sans broccoli because Ryan is so picky). That was also a delicious recipe, so I had a feeling the cheddar beer chicken would rock, and it did!

It was so easy to make and the chicken was perfectly cooked! I would definitely recommend the recipe!

On Thursday I made Tuscan pasta with tomato basil cream sauce. It was an incredibly easy recipe, because it was really just about combining canned/frozen stuff. I used spinach & cheese ravioli from Costco and Classico's Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo sauce (our favorite!)

Okay, on to this week's plan! As always, I don't cook on Wednesdays because I have class from 3-10.


Monday, March 5: Crispy Cheddar Chicken. Very pumped for this one. Crackers + Cheese + Chicken must = Love.





Tuesday, March 6: Bowtie pasta with feta, veggies, & cream. I have been wanting to make this for three weeks now! I need to get on it!





Thursday, March 7: Melt in your mouth chicken breasts. I hope it's true to its name!





Friday, March 9: BBQ Salmon (Ryan) & Broiled Parmesan Tilapia (me).


Saturday, March 10: Eat out or bring food in.


Sunday, March 11: Parmesan crusted chicken piccata with creamy noodles. This recipe is from my Rachael Ray cookbook. If it's a winner, I'll share how to make it!

What are you cooking this week?

Linking up to http://couponingncooking.blogspot.com's Meal Plan Monday!

On the menu, week three

Another Monday, another weekly menu! We had some successful meals last week that I'll share first:

Tuesday, February 21: Creamy chicken & stuffing casserole. This is an old favorite of ours. Here's the recipe! We always cut the chicken into pieces and we add some sour cream to the cream of chicken soup to make it more creamy!

Sunday, February 26: I had planned to make cheddar beer chicken, but after finding some Velveeta in the pantry that was due to expire soon (yeah, what? Velveeta expires???!?! Apparently) I changed plans and made this delicious cheese soup! MMMM. So creamy, so cheesy. So good.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Monday, February 27: Cider cream chicken with cous cous. I didn't get the chance to make this last week, and I'm craving it!

Tuesday, February 28: FINALLY I will make cheddar beer chicken. I swear it. I plan to use the leftover cheese soup from Sunday in the recipe!

Wednesday, February 29 (Leap Day!): No cooking, I have class.

Thursday, March 1: Tuscan pasta with tomato basil cream sauce.

Friday, March 2: Turkey meatloaf. Mmmmm.

Saturday, March 3: My night off. We'll go out or order in.

Sunday, March 4: Spinach & artichoke cheesy pasta with Olive Garden breadsticks--I hope they're as good as the real thing!

What are you cooking this week?

Linking up to http://couponingncooking.blogspot.com's Meal Plan Monday!

On the menu, week two

Last week I decided to challenge myself by posting our menu and promising to share how the new recipes tasted. Well here I am, back to share!

Monday I made Cornish game hens.

The verdict? They turned out pretty good! They were nice and juicy. Not as flavorful as I would have liked, but that could be because I halved the recipe since I was only making 2 hens. We did come to the conclusion that we aren't the biggest fans of hens, because they take a lot of effort to dig out the meat and eat. Haha! I did kinda make up a sauce recipe for the pasta side, and Ryan ended up loving it. I just made the pasta, poured it back in the pot, added a little olive oil, about 1/2 a cup of milk, 1 wedge of Skinny Laughing Cow Swiss cheese, a sprinkle of parmesean cheese, and a sprinkle of mozzarella. I think it'll be a new go-to side for us, since I usually have those things on hand! Mmmm.

Tuesday was our big Valentine's day extravaganza featuring FOUR new recipes. What? I thought that it would be overwhelming to cook it all, but it was actually quite great! I just started prepping hours beforehand so that it wouldn't get too stressful.

The main dish, Filet Oscar, was delicious, even though I did not master the bearnaise sauce--that's on my to-do list :) I didn't cut the butter into slices beforehand, and it was supposed to be added one tablespoon at a time, so I think the yolk and vinegar mixture had some time to separate...thus the sauce was not as creamy as it should have been. But other than that, the steak, crab, and asparagus were perfect! The creamy brussels sprouts were SO GOOD. Like, I would eat them every day good. Like, Ryan never eats his sprouts but he ate these good. Definitely a repeat. Same with the smoked gouda mashed potatoes---MMMM. They look deceptively gross/goopy in the photos, but they were GOOD! I added more gouda than the recipe called for, but in my opinion it was called for, haha. The faux-Red Lobstah biscuits also turned out great!! I used my heart cookie cutters from Gabriella to make them Valentine's appropriate :) I would add a pinch of garlic salt to the dry mixture--the recipe just called for you to add spices to the butter that gets brushed on top, but the inside was just a little bland to me.

Thursday I was supposed to make cheddar beer chicken in the crock pot....but life got in the way and I fell back on a familiar recipe, Chicken Tortilla soup. I plan to make the cheddar beer chicken this next week, though, so I can share the verdict!

Here's what's on our menu this week:

Monday, February 20: Thanksgiving food! Yeah, we're both having major cravings, and we have some frozen turkey and some taters...I won't go all out and make green beans and sweet potatoes or anything (Ryan doesn't eat 'em), but the T-Giving trifecta (turkey, potatoes, stuffing--and gravy, too, but that's a given with the potatoes) is calling our names.

Tuesday, February 21: Creamy chicken & stuffing casserole (using leftover stuffing from Monday). This is a recipe from Ryan's mom that we love! It's delicious. I will share the full recipe in my verdict post.

Wednesday, February 22: I have class all night, so I don't cook!

Thursday, February 23: Bowtie pasta with feta, veggies, and lemon pepper chicken. This one looks very promising!

Friday, February 24: Pizza night! I have to take a night (well, besides Wednesday, haha) off sometime.

Saturday, February 25: Another old favorite, apple cider chicken with cous cous.

Sunday, February 26: Cheddar beer chicken.

I'll let you know how the next batch of recipes turns out!


Linking up to http://couponingncooking.blogspot.com's Meal Plan Monday!

On the menu

I decided to try a new method to motivate me to do 2 things: 1. blog more and 2. cook more new recipes. So I'm going to share what's on the menu in our household for the next week. I will make at least one new recipe per week, then share what I liked and what I didn't!


Sunday, February 12: Breakfast for dinner (pancakes, cheesy hashbrowns, sausage links, bacon, eggs).


Monday, February 13: Cornish game hens with garlic and rosemary. Also, it's our one-month anniversary :)

Tuesday, February 14: Special Valentine's Day Dinner! I'm attempting to make Ryan's favorite dish, Filet Oscar, which is a filet covered in crab, bearnaise sauce, and asparagus. Along with that I will make these smoked gouda mashed potatoes, these cream-braised brussels sprouts, these imitation Red Lobster biscuits, and some dark chocolate Ghirardelli brownies. Mmmmmm! This is a really ambitious meal plan and all are new recipes...crossing my fingers that it turns out okay!!

Wednesday, February 15: I have class from 3-10 on Wednesdays, so I don't make dinner those nights.

Thursday, February 16: Cheddar Beer Chicken. I'm going to use Boulevard Wheat for the beer--should be yummy!!

Friday, February 17: BBQ salmon for Ryan, Parmesan broiled tilapia for me. (I don't really dig salmon and he doesn't really dig tilapia, so I just make us two kinds of fish.)

Saturday, February 18: I'm hosting a Jurassic Park movie marathon, so we're being bad and eating lots of fried appetizer type foods.

Sunday, February 19: An old favorite, Chicken Tortilla Soup. Mmmmmm!

I'm excited to try all these new recipes and share my verdict with you!