I just had something happen, again, that has happened to me enough times that I am seriously going to change the way I use Pinterest.
I suffer from a hereditary excess of recipes (I can't help it - I got it from my mother) and they're kind of everywhere. I have recipes in books, recipes in emails, I have recipes in Google Documents and in Evernote. I have recipe "boxes" on various websites like AllRecipes. I have scanned copies of recipes in my grandmothers' and great-grandmothers' handwriting. I used to have software that kept them all straight, but it required a ton of data entry and it became obsolete after a couple of computer upgrades (I think it ran on Windows 3.1). I have recipes saved in random folders on random hard drives. I have recipes in descriptions of Google Calendar Events on my Menu Planning calendar (this system is HIGHLY inefficient). I even set up a separate email address for a while to which I could email recipes to myself so that I could keep them all without cluttering up my primary Gmail account (that was pre-Evernote).
Thus, if I want to make something a second time, I have to remember where I put it. This is a stupid system. One of these days I'm going to put all of my recipes into ONE system (probably Evernote). Today is not that day. I still have 14,000 pictures to catalog. (The problem is I take photos faster than I catalog photos).
While getting ready to go to the grocery store just now, I decided to make Crock Pot Italian Chicken again, because we're going to be at the park on Wednesday and it would be nice to get home and have dinner ready. So I went to Pinterest to find the recipe.
Found it! Knew it was there. Yay. Until I clicked.
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| SON of a .... |
Ok, fine, I remember that it had chicken and Italian dressing and bow tie pasta, so I Google, and I find a recipe, but it's missing an ingredient. I knew there was more to it than chicken, cream cheese, and Italian dressing packets. There was one more ingredient, but I don't remember what it is.
More Googling, and I finally find a recipe that has too many ingredients (who needs vegetables!?) but it's enough to jog my memory. The missing ingredient is cream of chicken soup. Ok, fine. I can go to the store.
But now it's pouring.
This has happened to me more often than not when I've gone back to find a previously-used recipe in Pinterest. It's almost like the pins expire over time. I don't know, but I'm sick of it, so I'm not going to keep recipes in Pinterest anymore.
From now on, if I see a pin with a yummy looking recipe, I'm going to copy it to Evernote, because then I will know that can find it again when I want it. It's annoying, because it's going to be more clicks between finding a recipe and keeping it, but hopefully I won't lose anything else. I guess I should probably pick a permanent recipe solution and stick with it. I've started using OneNote for other things (the Neighborhood Association, Work, Writing, rolling to-do lists) so maybe I can keep Evernote for recipes only, and use OneNote for everything else.
Jeez, first world problems, right? How do you keep your recipes? Has Pinterest lost your stuff before? How do you deal with all the data in your life (pictures, recipes, things I haven't thought of yet but will bug me when I get around to worrying about them)?
7 comments:
What I'm impressed most with is you had a recipe program that ran in windows 3.1. :-)
What I'm impressed most with is you had a recipe program that ran in windows 3.1. :-)
I copy and paste them all in Word. That started when I worked and folks in the office would ask for the recipe for something I had brought in and just kind of morphed into a system that works for me.
Since we travel a lot in our RV, that also means that I have them with me wherever I go. They're backed up on the server at home so if I add new ones on the road, I just e-mail to myself to update when we return. It works for me because I can have all the folders I want to categorize them under the main "Recipes" folder.
Have I typed up all of my old recipes in Word to add to this system? Are you serious? But I have added all the old favorites and do keep up with the new ones.
SO glad for this post, a week later. I have been scouting stuff for work (group games mostly) and had COMPLETELY forgotten about Evernote. Anyway, thanks for that. :)
If I find a decent recipe on Pinterest I will copy and paste the text into TextEdit (I'm on a Mac) and save it to a folder called, what else?, 'Recipes.' I like this method because I can do a search for an ingredient and the recipe file will come up.
Pinterest recipes annoy me, too. For one thing, when you click through sometimes it doesn't take you directly to the link but the site's homepage or something. Sometimes you have to scroll through a long blog post about whatever instead of getting right to the point-- the recipe. Also, I try to eat healthy and when I see something labeled "The Best _____ in the WOrld!!! Seriously!! OMG!!", I click through to the link and it has Velveeta/processed stuff/chemicals, etc. I have to say, sorry that can't be the "Best" anything.
So I save up recipes I want to try on my computer and print them out when needed. Once I print them out, I put them in a 3-ring binder inside a plastic sheet protector. I have recipes divided into general categories so they're easier to find. This seems to work pretty well for me.
All I see on Pinterest is pictures. I can't figure out how to get to a recipe. Somebody must know how it works all those pins I see. But for the life of me I can't figure out why people just want to look at pictures. I can't see what all the hype is about. I too have a ton of recipes and I keep them on a USB. I like to see the recipe and see that someone has tried it and if they liked it. I see so many sites where people see the picture and want to PIN it because it looks good. How dumb is that?
Maxine - if you go to Pinterest.com and find a picture of food, click on it. It'll get bigger - now you're looking at that specific pin and not just your "homepage." Click on it a second time and it should (if the link hasn't broken) take you to the recipe itself, or the instructions, or the review that will then take you to the recipe. In other words, "click through" to get to the content. You're just looking at the cover of the magazine and thinking, "What's the big deal?" because you haven't figured out how to open the pages! Hope this helps!
Amy
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