A recent post on a Cooking Light Forum says:

My parents are coming to stay with us for a week in August. We see them maybe once a year or so, and even less often do they actually get to stay in our home so I can cook. Often throughout the year I say "Wow, my father would love this...." and then it's time to put together a menu.....and I've totally spaced on what it was that my father would have loved.   -  Jewel.

Jewel you are not alone!  I'm always finding the perfect recipe for this or that but then can't think of anything when the actual event happens - like dessert for dinner parties. 

Jewel's post continues:

I've got to learn to write these things down! 

I have a different suggestion for Jewel and everyone else who wants a way to organize their recipes to fit their lifestyles and their own personal needs.  I'm talking about Tagging. 

If you've tried Project Foodie Recipe Track & Tag you know it's an easy way to keep track of recipes from multiple cooking magazines (and soon other types of publications).  But Tracking is only half the story –  Tagging helps you organize your recipes based on your own personal needs so you have all the information in one place and so you can look at the recipes in whatever way you want.

Such as…

– Recipes for company? Tag - company
– Recipes for the holidays? Tag - thanksgiving or hanukkah or christmas or ...
– Recipes for the garden bounty? Tag - zucchini or tomatoes or garden or …
– Recipes the kids like? Tag - kidfriendly

The possibilities are endless since tags are not predefined – they are whatever word or word groupings you want them to be.

In Jewel's case she could add a father (company or WOW) tag to any recipes that she'd like to serve to her father.  Then when Dad actually comes to visit all she needs to do is click on the father folder at the left of her list of recipes she is tracking and voilà all the recipes she thought her father would enjoy are listed for her to choose from! 

Sure, all of the Track & Tag recipes already have tags such as main, sides, desserts and so forth but by adding your own tags you can personalize and organize the recipes so they are easy to find for whenever you want them...

I created Track & Tag to solve this and similar problems with finding recipes.  I've been using it for a while and although many more things are planned it's already really helpful.   I encourage everyone to try it out and once you have, let me know ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) what you think so it can be improved and made even better.

As I've talked about in previous posts, I've been trying to choose what we're going to eat based on what's seasonal and fresh at the market.  While I've been doing OK, it's not easy.  So, I've enlisted help!  Starting this week, Foodie Chris will be helping me pick recipes that are seasonal and scrumptious.  We're calling this "On our plate". The choices will be presented on the Project Foodie front page each day along with notes on what's great about the dishes, variations that can be tried, and ideas on what to serve with the dishes.  I hope you'll find this an interesting and useful addition to the Project Foodie line-up.

You know the phrase - it goes something like - "Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on you".  Well, today it is "Shame on me".  Not following?  Let me explain.

A while ago I posted "Oops - dinner is gonna be late" which listed a bunch of my dinner preparation mistakes that resulted in late dinners. My hope was to learn from the past, yet today I committed Late Dinner Sin #3:

3.  You glance at the recipe in the morning to confirm you have all the ingredients.  But when you start cooking in the evening Step 2 says "Marinate 8 hours".  Result:  Going out for dinner.

Sadly, not only did I glace at the recipe this morning but I also went shopping for all of the necessary ingredients.  Yet, somehow (perhaps because I didn't fully read the recipe), this evening when I went to prepare it I was assaulted with "Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight"  at the end of the first paragraph in the recipe. Gee -  not only did I commit Late Dinner Sin #3 but I did it nearly perfectly!

If you're interested our luscious dinner tonight was going to be "Caramelized Onion, Swiss Chard, and Fontina Cheese Strata" using Swiss chard from the farmers market and the remains of my garden's yield of Walla Walla onions. 

Sigh - looks like we're going out tonight! At least I know what we're eating tomorrow night...

The hunt begins... Just a sampling of my recipe stash.

Why Recipe Track & Tag?  Each month I spend hours going through cooking magazines and cookbooks picking out recipes I want to make.  I dog-ear the pages for recipes that look good and I cook many of them.  I have the best intentions to keep track of theses recipes but ultimately life happens and the next thing I know the recipes are lost never to be found again!  Where are they?  Some are hidden in piles of cooking magazines and books in my house or possibly even in my car, some are left at friends or relatives houses, and sadly some are even accidentally thrown out.   I call this "recipe oblivion".  

 I've wasted hours trying to find recipes that are in "recipe oblivion".  Usually the hunt goes something like this:

I start by trying to remember where I last saw the recipe and when that doesn't work I ask myself when I first cooked it.  If it was hot when I cooked it then I reason that "the recipe must have been published in the summer".  What year I ask myself?  "Hmm it was probably last year".  That means it would be in the June, July or August issue from last year.  Next I try to figure out which magazine the recipe was in thinking "it was a pretty quick dish so it probably wasn't Gourmet - so I'll start with Cooking Light June of last year."  But after searching all of those issues I typically still won't have found the recipe.  Sometimes that's because even though I cooked the recipe in the summer the recipe actually came out in the spring. Or maybe I really didn't cook it in the summer. Or maybe the recipe really was in Gourmet.  Or maybe I just missed it when looking through the issues (the first 10 times!).  Sometimes I even recruit Husband to help in the hunt and sometimes I simply never to find the recipe. UGGGG! 

So, what is the solution?  I've tried lots of different schemes to keep track of my recipes including recipe cards, lists on my computer and actually tearing the pages out of the magazines.  I still lose the recipes.  At one point, I even bought software to keep track of recipes.  But re-entering the recipes was tedious.  These days some websites will let you keep track of their recipes or re-enter other recipes but it's a pain to go to multiple sites and/or re-enter recipes.  What is needed is a single place to keep track of recipes from any magazine, any cookbook, or simply anywhere!  And that is exactly what Project Foodie is doing! We are providing a single destination to easily keep track of all your favorite recipes.  We're still working on improving and adding to Recipe Track & Tag so you will see changes happening over time.  But give it a try and let us know what you think… help us help you by shaping the system to your needs. Necessity is the mother of invention and Project Foodie is what I needed to invent to help with all my lost recipes, hopefully it's what you need too.