The Recipe Collection Meme

I love church book sales!
I got tagged last week by my friend Rob at Hungry In Hogtown, and I had taken some pictures of my modest mound of cookbooks, when I found out about a giant book sale happening at a church in my area. So, off I toddled with the thought "oboyoboyoboyoboyoboy..." rattling around in my head, and about $20 in my pocket ready to plunder and pillage the cookbook table. Well, I made out like a bandit. You'll notice the large red book on the right side of the picture. That's the Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook, containing a stunning 4400 recipes. One dollar. Then there's the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook. Also one dollar. I ended up with fourteen various cookbooks for a total of $10! My 'to do' list has just multiplied exponentially.

On that note, here we go...

Where do you obtain the recipes you prepare?
Right now it's about even between the internet, and my cookbooks. I've found quite a few neat recipes on the Food Network website, on Epicurious.com, and various other sites. I also get several of the recipes I use from my mother, from food I remember eating as a child.

How often do you cook a new recipe?
I try to cook a new recipe at least once a week, free time and budget permitting. Occasionally, I get on a bit of a roll, and cook several new things all at once, then take a break for a while.

Where do you store your favourite recipes?
I have a binder that I've started recently. It's organized in categories for the most part - Appetizers, Condiments & Spices, Main Courses, Desserts, etc., although there is a section at the back for Miscellaneous New Recipes. Most of these are also stored on my home computer, so if the page gets covered in gravy or hollandaise sauce or a balsamic vinegar explosion, I can just print out a fresh copy.

How large is your recipe pile? Is it organized? How?
Aside from my cookbooks, I have thirty-two recipes on my computer in the aptly named "recipes" folder. This is organized much like my binder (see above).

What is the oldest recipe in your to try pile?
Oboy. Not sure, but I think it's a recipe for marinated pot roast I got from my mother, that was clipped from a newspaper.

Are you really ever going to make all those recipes in your to try pile?
As it stands right now, probably not. Y'know, unless I win the lottery and have a LOT more free time to work with. It'll be fun trying, though.

Do you follow a recipe exactly or modify as you go?
As much as possible, I like to attempt a recipe "as is" the first time I attempt it. After that, all bets are off.

What is one new recipe that you're scared to try?
I really can't think of any recipe I'm scared to try. There are several that I'm simply ill-equipped to try in terms of kitchen gadgets, etc., like making homemade sausages. My relative inexperience in the kitchen makes me more or less fearless when it comes to new recipes.

Tag at least one new food blogger for this meme ("new" as in only blogging a few months)
I've only been doing this myself for a few months, so I really don't know any other 'newbies'.

Tag at least one food blogger you visit regularly but never interacted with:
Well, there aren't really any sites that I visit regularly that I haven't interacted with at all, but I haven't actually left any comments for MM at Mana Makan - The Feast Crusade. She has left some very nice comments on my blog, and I've responded, but I haven't actually left any comments on her site. I feel shame now.

Tag at least one food blogger you constantly visit and leave comments:
That would be my friends Rob and Rachel at Hungry In Hogtown. This is my favourite food blog. Rob has such a bent sense of humour, it's just too bad he doesn't golf as well as he cooks. Oh, I'm gonna get it for that one.
Another one of my favourites is Michelle at Je Mange La Ville. The quantity of material on that site is staggering. She's a cooking machine. And she, and her sig.oth. jwa both have a very enjoyable writing style. I got an excellent recipe for perogies from JMLV.

Tag anyone else you want:
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Kalyn's Kitchen. My first blogger event was her 'cheese sandwich blog' thingumawhatsit. This site is a constant source of inspiration for me.