Peace in the Kitchen: Recipe Cheat Sheet
I love to tape frequently used recipes to the inside of my spice cabinet. It is just so handy to have them right there. The problem with my little cabinet is that it was getting out of control:
So I made a recipe cheat sheet. Since it is typed, I could fit more on one page than if I were to write it out by hand! More is better 🙂
I am not a computer whiz by any stretch of the imagination, and made this by using text boxes in Word. It’s not fancy, but it is useful.
Many of the recipes were already on the computer or bookmarked online, so a lot of it was simple cut and paste.
The recipe instructions are whittled down to the bare bones; some only include ingredients and no method at all. These are the ones that are made often and are almost memorized, but not quite.
The cheat sheet includes some of my go-to recipes and also a few spice mixes, salad dressing, marinara sauce, peanut butter, and our favorite breakfast and dinner meals.
You can take a peek at mine if you like*
I’m planning to make another cheat sheet that includes traditional food preparation techniques. We love to eat real food and I am striving to prepare it in the most nutritious way possible. Cutting down the time it takes to find exactly how much whey I should put in with the oats for soaking, and so on, might help make this happen more often.
It would be fun to create a few themed cheat sheets: breakfast, lunch, easy dinners, and snacks.
I’m not sure if I am terribly lazy or just plain busy to need my recipes taped to the cabinet. But it works very well for me, saving lots of time, energy, and brain strain! It also helps keep the crumbs out of my laptop!
*If you download my cheat sheet, remember that it is for my personal use, so some of the recipes may not make complete sense! Also, note that the Stromboli and turkey sausage recipes come from Laura@ Heavenly Homemakers and the Potatoes and Broccoli Cheese are from Modern Alternative Mama.
This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.
Click image below to see my cheat sheet!
I’ve always wanted to frame recipes and use them as wall art in the kitchen but alas, I have mostly cabinets and no open walls. This is a cool idea.
That sounds lovely. It would be nice to have some special, family recipes on the all. Great idea.
Going one step further with this idea … my sister and I both have our favorite recipe hand written by our mother framed on our kitchen (they were wedding presents). It is so sweet and special to see her handwriting and I know we will cherish it even more when she is no longer with us. I have some old recipe cards hand written by my grandmother that mean the world to me!
Good idea! I have recipes taped to my cabinets too LOL And I’m stealing your peanut butter recipe and the taco seasoning mix – thanks! 🙂
Steal away 🙂
Great idea! Thank you for sharing. I need to type up some cheat sheets myself. 😉
You’re welcome!
Oh, thanks! Now I am hungry! Hehehe.. Thanks for sharing your neat sheet there! I am going to swipe it to try some of those recipes now. Protein pancakes? AWESOME!
Yes Dee! Protein Pancakes. The whole family thinks these are the best! Even my husband who doesn’t like regular pancakes. Just blend it all up in the blender then pour into a hot pan.
That’s a great idea! Very handy.
You and I have many similarities!! Your idea is so much better though. I have always kept my favorite recipes in a quick and convenient drawer. That too got out of control. I didn’t figure out another way, I would just have to go through them from time to time and file some away, only to do the same thing. I’m glad you learn and improve!
This is a GREAT idea! I really need to get organized in this way because my recipes aren’t even taped randomly on a cabinet door. They float around in my head and get confused. 🙂
What I’ve done (which I will change now) is to make my own cookbook with favorite recipes, filed in categories (main dishes, for example) in alphabetical order. These I keep in a binder in plastic sleeves. When it’s time to cook, I simply remove the recipe in its plastic sleeve and put it on my refrigerator or hang it on a rack near the stove. But I really like your idea for the most frequently used recipes. To make it last longer, however, I would put my cheat sheet in a plastic sleeve (I am so messy when I cook). Thanks for the great idea!
(BTW, I found you on Keeper of the Home on a comment concerning the application form for contributing writers. I too applied – last spring – and have so enjoyed being a contributing writer now for several months. Hope to see you become part of the team.)
I am in the process of putting my “family favorites” binder together. I think that is a great idea for recipes that are used often, but not often enough to make it onto the cheat sheet. I’m a very messy cook too and should probably put this in a plastic sleeve!
Thanks for your kind comment. I appreciate you visiting me!
This reminds me so much of my grandmother’s kitchen. She had a antique set of wooden cabinets from her grandmother, and there were dozens of recipes scrawled in pencil on the inside of the cabinet doors. They were written in this beautiful cursive script that people used to write in long ago, and unfortunately many of the recipes were difficult to read from the pencil wearing off. But from what I can tell it was definitely an old-fashioned cheat sheet 😉 Things like pie crusts, biscuits, soups, etc.
I love this. How neat.
Good idea! I have started using plastic page protectors for recipes and often will post them in the cupboard door as well.