Recipe notebook

I've struggled a lot with keeping up with my recipes. It's mainly baking recipes, as they should be followed more precisely than cooking. I don't have a real recipe for most dishes and just use what I have on hand/what's in season etc. Baking is a bit different though, as a bit too much of baking powder or butter can totally ruin the end result! Let alone if I don't remember what temperature the oven should be set on. It's just that I don't like writing. Well, I do enjoy writing (or else I wouldn't be blogging), but not physical handwriting. I know that there are probably more apps than I am aware of, which all claim that they have the perfect solution to this problem. However, I don't like to be dependent on my phone too much. Screens can be addictive and I already spend more time on my phone than is good for me. I'm also afraid that if something were to happen, I lost everything. 

I also want to have something physical which was really made and written by myself (despite my ugly handwriting!), to start a family tradition of passing on recipes. I really like a lot of old fashioned stuff. And when I think of handwriting recipe cooks, that's really an old fashioned tradition that should be kept alive, in my opinion. Whenever I read about people who have family recipes being passed down by their grandmother, it honestly makes me a bit jealous! I never had this opportunity. My eldest late grandmother passed away when I was 13 and I guess I was too young to think about her recipes; if she had written them down at all, which I doubt. My other late grandmother passed away 8 years ago, but to say she was a picky eater would be an understatement. Were she willing to get help she'd probably be diagnosed with ARFID. I don't recall her ever having cooked a meal for us; she nearly only ate cheese sandwiches. And when we came to visit her, she usually made pancakes. So, unfortunately we don't really have family recipes. That means I'm the first one to be starting this tradition! I don't want my children to miss out too. This will also include recipes that are being passed down by my mother in law (which she in turn learned from her mother). She's illiterate, so she cannot write them down herself. I think it's very cool to have such a strong connection with ancestors; through food. Of course, we hope we'll all be given much years to come to spend together as a family without having to worry about whether recipes were written down... But still, one can't start early enough. 

And it's not just in case something were to happen to me- even with small calamities, it can come in handy. I realised this when I really needed a certain recipe but there was an internet blackout. Our internet connection isn't that strong, and blackouts are quite common here, but they usually last for a few minutes. That specific time, it lasted for hours! I ended up making something else, of which I was sure I knew the measurements of the ingredients. From then on I've tried to write down my recipes. One at a time. Since I don't like handwriting (I have a terribly looking handwriting and writing for more than 10 minutes just hurts my arms), it's a slow progress, but slow progress is better than no progress at all, after all. I try to at least write down a few recipes a week. Sometimes it takes a few weeks until I write down even one single recipe, but i'm getting there slowly. What I'm writing it down in is nothing fancy; just a basic notebook. Maybe one day when I get a really pretty notebook I might have to re-write everything again... 😆

I've made a few categories: breads, cookies, cakes, and miscellaneous (for things that don't fit in other categories). I guess I'll have to write down my main dishes too, although that's going to be a bit more challenging. Whenever I share recipe online of a main dish, it's always estimated and never precisely, so if I write them down in a notebook it's not going to be any different. The main dishes deserve a separate notebook, in my opinion. It'll be the next project when my current one is finished. 

And I won't be tempted to use any app on my phone for this.