Recipe Book Progress

Remember how I said one of my goals was to make a recipe book?

Well I've been working on it a lot here lately, and I have to say, it's made some pretty awesome progress.

A lot of the book itself is based off of TasteBook, which is essentially a recipe binder maker site. It does exactly what I'm doing - professionally. The reason I didn't go with them? I wanted to be able to print off copies of these recipes at any time. I have this fear of companies like this going out of business...yes, I can order 5 now, but in 20 years when my kids want one, will I be able to get it?

I'll always be able to open a Word Document.

So I opened up my handy Photoshop, made several banners (I color coordinated the sections of the book), imported them into a word document, and then turned that into a Word Template. That way, I could ensure every one of them is the same - and I can give each person a disk with the templates, and they can create their own additional pages.

I've created 10 categories for my recipe book (some of which are drastically empty, because I don't cook things out of them often):
Brunch and Breads
Appetizers and Drinks
Soups and Salads
Sides
Pasta, Rice, and Beans
Fish and Seafood (this would be an empty one, because Sean doesn't like them)
Meat and Poultry
Desserts
Crock Pot
Everything Else

My Everything Else section has measure conversions, ingredient substitutions, and recipes for things like chili sauce. I'm trying to find a catchier name, mostly because I want it at the front of the book, but I can't figure one out :\

I've imported all of my standard, go-to recipes, and now I'm cruising the web for a few additional ones. Every time I see a good one - into the book it goes! Now if only I could get my sisters-in-law and mother-in-law to send me theirs...

Anyway. Want to see a page?

It's a bit shortened, cause the rest of the page is blank space. But that's the banner I'm using (ahem, and created myself). It's simple but adorable at the same time. It adds interest to the page too. Each section is color coded and desserts just happen to be bright purple :) 

We plan on getting personalized recipe binders from Zazzle - that way we can each have our own personal ones! I love that you can change the type, and so first names, last names, and clever recipe book titles are all possibilities. I haven't decided on which one I want - I like WAY too many of them. They're 1.5" binders too, so there's plenty of room for all the pages we could ever need. 

I'm super excited about how it's coming along...I can't wait until it's finished!