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.

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