Saturday, November 13, 2010

Another Easy Winter Decluttering Plan

This decluttering plan is a little bit like my plan to read the books on my personal shelf, but it will take a bit more moving around.  Not a lot more, but a little.  

The Back Story:

I got rid of a whole box of cookbooks a year or so ago, all of them never-used, but I still have quite a few left.  Basically, there are only five I use regularly.

  • I take out my mother in law's old Betty Crocker cookbook ALL THE TIME.    It was my best friend in my early married days when all I knew how to do was boil eggs, scramble eggs, and bake Toll House Cookies.
  • And I occasionally use my Good Housekeeping cookbook, though I could easily live without it so long as I had Betty Crocker.
  • And there are three well-worn cookie cookbooks that my kids and I use frequently.   Doesn't every house need at least three cookbooks devoted to baking cookies?  
  • The other 15 or so cookbooks are in the category of "wish I was using them more".   
  • And when I DO need a recipe I usually go on the internet and google the ingredients I want to use, rather than hunt through the cookbooks I have.

So here's the plan:

  1. Go through the Unused Fifteen and pick out the recipes that I really think I could use.
  2. USE them (at least some version of them). 
  3. If I like the recipe, type it up or find it on the internet and print it out --
  4. Put the recipe in a pretty binder (though probably not so pretty as the one my daughter is building)
  5. Then I will have one personalized cookbook instead of 15 that I really don't use,
  6. Plus I may have added some new recipes to my stock -- ten basic dinner recipes and their variations can take you a surprisingly long way in feeding a family, but there are times when I think a mother of many should have a FEW more kitchen skills.
  7. And it will be fun when I'm getting cabin-crazy since I am sensing that this winter is going to be long and snowy.
  8. And it will be good for my weight maintenance since I always cook better and eat better when I'm hungry, for some strange reason.   

You can see how I'll need to move around at least a little.  Our kitchen is fairly big.

1 comment:

  1. EVERYONE keeps talking about a long and snowy winter!!!!

    What was last year's!!!!!???????

    well, here's to hoping all of you are WRONG!!!!!!

    (she says, as she heads into a winter storm warning)

    ReplyDelete

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!