What's For Dinner?

This is a frequent sight in our kitchen: a grocery list is being populated with needed items based on recipes from the meals planned for the coming week. How do you tackle this task? My approach to the job has become something of a ritual. My recipes are stored in expanding folders labeled accordingly: main dishes, breakfast foods, breads and coffee cakes, vegetables, salads, etc. What appears to be a mess here is actually quite orderly (at least to my thinking). I know what I am looking for while hunting for my tried and true lasagna recipe: it's hand jotted on the end flap of the lasagna noodles box. Who else would know this? I'm guessing no one. But, that's the way I have saved all my favorites. Some are penned by my mother, my grandmother, my daughter, my mother-in-law; these are the treasured recipes, the ones I return to over and over. I know which one is on what sheet of paper by size, color and design. These are not the only recipes I possess, not by a long shot!

Nearly thirteen years ago Mr. Goodneedle built me this cookbook cabinet for my birthday. I desperately needed a way to organize an ever-growing cookbook library. It was designed for this space; I wanted it to be tucked away, in plain sight, in this corner of our kitchen. You can see how many cookbooks it holds; on the top shelf of the bottom section, behind the doors, is my box of "organized" file folders. Do I use all of the other numerous cookbooks in my collection? Occasionally, yes. Do I have other recipes in virtual folders on my computer? Of course I do; I use online sources for new recipes that I want to try and am constantly spurred on with additional ideas by sites like Pinterest too. And yet, where do I always return, week after week? Yep, you know it, those files crammed chock-full of handwritten recipes proven by generations to be exactly the meal that I had in mind; there is great comfort contained there. So, what's for dinner at your house?

Life is Good!