Creating a Family Cookbook

One of the greatest gifts you can give to your next generation of family members is a collection of recipes that have been a part of holiday dinners, birthdays, reflect your heritage, or are your everyday family favorites. We often spend our time archiving family photos, making scrapbooks and memory books, but it is also nice to archive the food that was prepared and served at various family events.

How to get started? Start simple and it will be quick, easy and fun!  First pick a category or theme like "Holiday Baking", "Christmas Dinner Favorites" or "Italian Family Favorites" and gather your recipes.  I started by gathering my favorite holiday cookie recipes that were scattered in a variety of cookbooks and typed the recipes into a "cookbook" folder on my computer. I could print the recipes and easily access the recipes when I needed them and how nice to have them all in one location!

                                           Christmas Cookies ready to
                                           be packaged up for friends and family.
                                            "Holiday Baking"

I added anecdotes saying where I got the recipe, what I remembered about it, who in the family enjoyed it and really what my special memory was of that particular dish. I  added some family pictures to accent the memories and printed the recipe pages and put them in a loose-leaf notebook with page protectors.  Simple and inexpensive!  I now try to photograph the food dishes whenever I make them and add a picture of the finished product.

                                            Pasta with Pesto
                                            "Italian Family Favorite"

It has been a labor of love and I now have about 165 recipes in the book and several categories- "Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Favorites", "Holiday Baking", "Everyday Family Favorites", "Everyday Baking", "Birthday Cakes", and "Entertaining".  As time has allowed, I work on a new category for the book and add the pages to the loose-leaf notebook.

                                           Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
                                            My mom's favorite birthday cake
                                            "Birthday Cakes"

Family cookbooks can be bound and make a great gift for all of "the cooks" in your family, or for "the next generation of cooks" and can be given as gifts for wedding showers.  My next cookbook adventure is to bind some of my baking recipes, add a cookie sheet and a rolling pin and give for wedding shower gifts.  There is nothing like the smell of fresh baked cookies to build a memory!

                                           My "kitchen helper" at age 4 and
                                           my inspiration for creating the cookbook!

Recipes to follow soon in a "Cookbook" section on Kim's "Focus On" Blog.
Note--the recipe for Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze will be in the "Focus On Cooking" section.