My Kitchen & Garden Journal

I'm not sure why I suddenly feel inspired to post about my kitchen & garden journal, but here goes. This is my kitchen and garden journal (purchased for $.25 at a garage sale).

I like to find new recipies, online, in cookbooks, magazines, etc. and try them out. Naturally I always find more recipies I want to try than I have time to try them. So a couple years ago I started putting the ones I'd print off in a binder... which became a mess of random recipies, some I had tried and wanted to try again, some I'd tried and didn't like, and tons that I never got around to trying. I could never find the ones I was looking for and very quickly this system reached the end of it's usefulness.

Enter the idea of a kitchen and garden journal. I decided to start one because of my various canning adventures. I always forget how long it took us, how much of each thing we canned, what worked and what I wanted to do differently the next year, etc. So I began by just recording that- which I reference regularly. Then I started entering recipies I was trying, and I can comment on what I did or didn't like there. I made a rule for myself that I can't tape / write a recipe into the journal until I've tried it, so it doesn't get cluttered with good intentions (like my previous recipe binder), so I can easily find the recipies I want to use again.

What I've found: It's an awesome little resource! I can find the recipies easily (and they are attached to a page so I can't misplace them), I can reference canning data, I know what type of tomatoes I planted last year and when the first one was ripe, plus I have random garden commentary, and more. In short, this kitchen and garden is one that works really well for me so I thought I'd share :D