Tuesday 3 March 2009

Information overload?

Can you have too many recipes? As an inexperienced, self taught cook most of the things I cook/bake are other peoples recipes. I am always finding recipes and thinking "I must try that sometime" and yet I never get round to it or forget where I saw it. This no doubt has something to do with the huge (an forever growing!) number of recipes I find.

  • I watch a significant number of cooking programmes (Market Kitchen, Jamie Oliver, River cottage, Rachel Allen - to name just a few of my favorites I watch regularly),
  • I buy at least one monthly food magazine (sometimes 2),
  • I read the food section first in other magazines and newspapers,
  • I keep up with an ever growing list of food blogs and food related websites,
  • I have a constantly increasing shelf of cookbooks and regularly borrow cookbooks from my local library!

Is it any wonder I can't keep up? I can't help it though I just love cooking and reading and watching shows about it. For me reading recipe books/magazines is not just inspiring but also relaxing. From reading other food blogs I know I'm not strange (although a few people do seem to think it is).

So how do you all organise yours?

Now you see why I started a food blog! Today I have added a section to my blog to record recipes I want to try. I am also hoping that this blog will inspire me to keep trying new recipes and making sure I don't fall in to the trap of rotating the same 7-10 recipes.

I am also adding a new feature this week of adding my meal plan for the following week. Mostly this is for my benefit as I always write a basic meal plan on the back of my shopping list so I know what I need to buy and my OH does the shopping and often loses the list. We shop on Thursday nights most weeks and by Monday I'm often struggling to remember what I had planned! Publishing my meal plan should also motivate me to include new ideas.

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6 comments:

Heather S-G said...

You know...I am the same way...information overload (I never met a cookbook I didn't like...or cooking show, magazine, blog...you get my drift)!! Glad to find your blog :) Look forward to reading more.

Claire said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one! My first comment, how exciting!

Anonymous said...

i've stopped buying magazines in an attempt to get back soem control and am trying to be more disciplined and not print out everything i find online!

Claire said...

I'm trying to just stick to sainsbury's magazine now and any ones I find online are going in my "recipes I want to try" links box on the left hand side of this blog and then only printing them when I want to cook them.

A said...

lol. It's really good that you are learning from various sources. I mostly get my ideas from childhood foods, bloggers, food network, or friends. But I don't buy magazines much. I figure most of the same recipes are online. Cookbooks & mags are hard for me (unless it's dessert!) because I will only eat maybe 20% of recipes in the book and I feel it's a waste.

Claire said...

Alyse - I do like to find recipes online too but I also like flicking through cookbooks and magazines. I think I actually prefer reading cookbooks to the internet. I do know what you mean about books though I get through lots of cookbooks through the library so I don't mind if I only like 20% of the recipes. Some I will go on to buy if I really enjoy them & want to try a lot of the recipes.