VeganMoFo: Build your own cookbook

I’m interrupting your regularly scheduled mofo pizza theme to share an idea that you might find useful. I’m a nerd and love trying out new tools that make me more productive or just make what I usually do more fun. During this month, you’re going to be bombarded with awesome vegan recipes that you want to try. Even just reading the awesome roundup posts at VeganMoFo has me drooling and thinking about all that I want to cook - like this melty cheese recipe! You might be inclined to go bookmark crazy or to (heavens forbid) print out all the recipes.


cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by mark it with a B

Here’s one thing I do that makes it a lot easier:

  1. Download Evernote on your computer and install the Evernote web clipper on your web browser. Evernote is a pretty rad, digital notebook system and it’s easily synced with your mobile devices, so your notes are everywhere. 
  2. Create a Food notebook. 
  3. Start grabbing and saving recipes to your Food notebook. I tag them with main ingredients so that I can search or browse. Some of the tags I use include: stir-fry, food-projects (for labor intensive things I want to make or try, such as pirogies. ONE DAY< PIEROGIES!), basics, eggplant, breakfast, etc. 
  4. Share this notebook with others if you want. My partner Thomas wants to learn how to cook, but isn’t vegan and sometimes doesn’t know where to go for ideas. I save things to this notebook and it’s automatically shared with him so he can browse and get ideas of things to make. 

I also have a note in this notebook of what’s in my freezer at a given moment (because I forget and end up with five little packages of pine nuts). It’s a pretty good system that works for us and allows me to grab and save recipes as I find them and put them in a place that’s easy for me to access from my phone or tablet or even at work when I’m heading home and need to grab a few things at the store. I sit down every Friday night with my cookbooks and my Evernote and make a meal plan for the week. I swear! It’s fun!

/nerding

Tags: vegan veganmofo evernote productivity cookbook recipes