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.)