Recipe Box

I have a lot of recipe books on my book shelves, I am sucked in by the beautiful pictures and love flicking through the pages of the delicious looking food…

But out of all the hundreds of recipes in these books, I have probably only made 15 of them! Why? Maybe because I am not a patient cook, I get put off by the long list of ingredients. I like to look in the cupboard, throw some ingredients in and I am done!

Shelves full of recipe books

But I do have a special recipe box, a collection of recipes that I started as a teenager when living at home. Mainly from the influence of my mum and no doubt her mum before that. I have basic recipes from crumble topping, Yorkshire puddings and american pancakes. I have recipes from family and friends – Mum’s flapjack, Linda’s chocolate trifle, Rich’s frangipane tart (he is a head chef at a top restaurant!).

Christmas recipes – bread sauce and braised red cabbage and recipes that have been torn out of magazines that I have made and want to make again.

The beauty of the box is that I can keep adding recipes to it. It is my personal recipe collection where I go back to time and time again, much more than my glossy recipes books. These are the recipes that I want to cook and they mean something to me.

Try it yourself, it doesn’t have to to be a recipe box, it could be a recipe scrap book or folder, it just needs to be a special place for your recipes.

What are your favourite personal recipes? We would love to know.