The hunt for kale....and how I organize my recipes

I have a confession: I went to Pete's Frootique today. I know it's Sunday, and usually I try to keep Sundays as a shopping-free day, but yesterday was busy and I didn't get a chance to get into stores at all. Instead, I spent the day with my grandparents, and even got snowshoeing!


But back to Pete's Frootique...

For those who aren't familiar with Pete's, it's a market-style (organic) grocery store filled with wonderful things! Pete Luckett is the fellow that started it all, and he has a farm in the Valley. For my Toronto friends, Pete's is a lot like Whole Foods or Pusateri's. It's an experience, more than a grocery store! The market is beautifully laid out, the displays are artfully done, and you can find a lot of imported food, mostly from the UK.

Today I was on a mission though. About a month ago, I went to the Wolfville Market with a friend, and picked up some kale. After about a week of sitting in my fridge I decided it was about time I did something with it. I'd never cooked kale before, but it's supposed to be one of the healthiest foods to eat, so I thought it'd be worth a try! I found a recipe online that sounded decent: Sauteed Kale with Garlic Onions & Lemon. (I didn't get to participate in Sherrie's food challenge this week, but if I had this would've been my entry for Thursday's vegetarian recipe.) It was delicious!! In fact, I had to restrain myself from eating the full amount of sauteed kale in one sitting! Since then, I've haven't been able to find kale - I tried my local Sobey's and Superstore, the Halifax Market and Wolfville Market (to find locally grown), but no luck. Well, fortunately, Pete's had lots! I bought a big bunch of kale for 2.49. Yay!While at Pete's I picked up a few other things (it's almost impossible not to!): a new tea, Clipper Organic White Tea with Raspberry, grapes and pineapple. And I also stumbled upon a rack of recipe cards. So here's my 2nd confession of the day: I'm not at all creative when it comes to cooking. I need inspiration, and I need instructions. So when I come across recipes that look good, I'll try to make sure I get a copy of that recipe. The result has been an accumulation of so many scraps of paper, labels and recipe cards that were stuffed in my recipe book. Each time I picked it up, a million scraps of paper would fall out.

So here was my solution: Now, I know this may be a bit too obsessive-compulsive for most people, but I thought this was brilliant. I spent an evening in front of the TV, putting together this recipe box system. Sure, it took a bit of time to figure out what groupings I wanted, and to print and trim the labels to fit (thank goodness for my label maker!), but the end result was worth it.

Supplies: box with lid from Dollarama ($1), 3 pkgs of card dividers (only 1.5 used) from Dollarama ($1 ea.), blank coloured recipe cards from Dollarama ($1).

And here they are in their permanent home: I think there's a lot that can be said about someone from their recipe collection. My recipe book is full of family favourites, and recipes I've gotten from family (like great-grandmother's molasses cookies, or Bear River chocolate cake...). It's also full of my regular rotation of recipes - meatloaf, baked beans, risotto, etc. And often the pages are splattered with batter, and then there was that one unfortunate incident where I left a can of frozen orange juice out on the counter overnight and it exploded leaving a sticky orange goo all over my recipe book and walls..... .
So, I'm curious to know what other people do with their recipes. Do you collect recipes? transcribe them onto cards or in a book? where do you put/stash them?

(It's probably the Archivist in me that makes me just a little bit curious about how you organize your recipes.)

25 Things About Me

1. I like watching scary movies. But more than that, I like watching scary movies in complete darkness, with my door unlocked, and with a cold wind blowing through a gauzy curtain behind me. Basically I like to freak myself out. With that said, I'm not keen on gratuituous violence and gore - I'm more of a psychological thriller type.
2. My favourite colours are yellow and red, though not together.
3. I am attracted to embroidered textiles (pillows, blankets, wall hangings) and have to seriously resist every urge to fill my apartment with lovely embroidered things.
4. My first car was a 1991 Hyundai Excel named "Bob". It was a lemon. My second car is much more reliable, and named "Hephzibah".
5. I once had a tree run directly into the driver's side door of my mom's car while I was backing up. This happened at the cottage, while my mother was watching, and with my closest friends in the car. It wasn't pretty. To warn other drivers, my grandfather marked the tree (for several years after the incident) with red paint. Moral of this story: Be careful of trees, you never know when they're going to jump out at you!
6. I don't like TV in the morning. It's not so much that I don't like the programs; I think it's because it's far too much sensory activity for me in the morning. I listen to CBC Radio every morning to the dulcet tones of Don Connolly and Elizabeth Logan. Come to think of it, I don't remember ever being fond of TV in the morning (cartoons, etc.), except for that short phase where I watched Astro-Boy when it came on before I left for school.
7. I have a crooked toe that I've always been slightly self-conscious about.
8. Up until 2004, I refused to wear glasses because the extra thick lens needed to correct my lazy eye made my left eye look twice as big as my right eye. Vanity won over vision. Fortunately high-index lenses have come a long way and I can now wear glasses don't make me look like a freak of nature.
9. My favourite day of the week is Thursday because I like the anticipation of the coming weekend, but still like knowing I've got a day to get things done. EDO Mondays are a strong second.
10. I can't sleep in on Saturdays, but I find it very difficult getting out of bed the rest of the week. I think this is because Saturdays are my own time, whereas the rest of the week is my employer's time.
11. I like airports. When I'm travelling, I like to give myself lots of time, even if it means more than an hour waiting. I've made a ritual of it that usually involves buying a magazine (something I rarely do), picking up a delicious scone or baked good from Starbucks (or, if one isn't around, Tim's), and wandering about trying to unobtrusively people-watch.
12. I am a little uncomfortable calling people by their abbreviated names (or nicknames) because I worry that I don't know the person well enough to have earned that right, and because often I like the sound of their full name better.
13. I like having instructions to follow, even if I don't necessarily follow them. I think there's a sense of security if you know you can always go back to the instructions to see how it's supposed to be done. I think this is also why I enjoy knitting, because I can follow a pattern, or choose to diverge from the pattern.
14. I am extremely sentimental. I value things with memories attached much more than brand new and more valuable things.
15. I like cookbooks, but I am very particular about what cookbooks I buy. They must have good pictures to go with the recipes (I like seeing what the dish is supposed to look like), and the index must include ingredients (not just the names of the dishes), the ingredients should be relatively easy to find and should not include mixes, and the cookbook should be bound so it can be opened flat (how many times have I used bottles of oil to keep a cookbook opened while I'm using it?!?!).
16. I like cooking for myself and trying new recipes, but I enjoy it even more if I can share my cooking with someone else.
17. The things I miss the most about Toronto are my friends, the cheap but delicious restaurants, Chinatown and the cheese store in Kensington Mkt., and waking up to the sound of birds chirping in the morning (rather than the sound of cars starting, where I am now).
18. My favourite season is fall because ...the colours of the leaves are beautiful, ...it's apple season, ...I love the feel of crisp night air and warm sweaters, ...I get to add more blankets to the bed, ...I love the anticipation of the first snow-fall of the year...and for Christmas.
19. Stormy weather is my favourite kind of weather. I like the anticipation of the drama of nature, and an excuse to cocoon with candles and extra blankets.
20. My Myers-Briggs personality type is ISFJ which is an almost perfect match to my career choice as an Archivist.
21. I like putting order to chaos (this is the main idea behind being an Archivist), but more often than not I end up imposing chaos ON order. I usually make a task more difficult than it needs to be just by overthinking and overpreparing for every eventuality.
22. The label-maker I bought a couple years ago is the best toy I've bought for myself in years!
23. I have kept a journal for the better part of 13 years, though have noticed a steep decline in journal entries since keeping a blog.
24. I am a Big Sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Halifax and love the chance to refocus my energies on a child. I think adults spend too much time with adults and, as a result, miss out on a lot of fun.
    
25. I've been told many times, by many people, that I apologize too much. And I'm pretty sure it annoys them to no end. I'm sorry for this.