Declutter project #1 – Cookbooks!! This should be an easy one. I barely used cookbooks when I could see well, and with the loss of vision I have dropped off the cookbook wagon. There is a wagon, isn’t there?
Out of all these cookbooks shown below (list to follow for those who care), we only use one: The Mrs. Field’s Cookie Book (image #2). We use it on a regular basis, and mostly just for one recipe, chocolate chip cookies. However, my son has developed a love for baking, and he has tried a few different cookie recipes from the book on his own. Just yesterday he made peanut butter cookies. So yummy, and so worth keeping the book. As he gets older I expect him to get a bit more adventurous and try some of the fancier cookies. Because Momma loves cookies.
These books are going bye-bye:
- DeWitt Community Cookbook (Girl Scout Troop 183)
- Favorite Recipes of Hartford United Methodist Church
- The Four Ingredient Cookbooks (Three Cookbooks in One!) – this has a crap-ton of simple, yet dated recipes. Who eats “company beef”? It doesn’t even sound good.
- Saving Dinner – This includes meal plans and shopping lists, and I actually got quite a bit of use out of it in the early years of marriage, before the kids came of course 😉 It introduced me to meal planning, which I still do, only now I use the internet with websites such as Cozi, Allrecipes, etc..
- The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine Cookbook – I don’t even think we have the grill anymore. I’ll find out soon enough when my decluttering project moves to the kitchen cupboards!
- The Color Book of Cheesecakes – is this mine? Where did this come from??
- Betty Crocker’s New Dinner for Two Cookbook (1971) – clearly an antique. Could I donate this to the historical museum?
- Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola – I used to be a collector of all things Coke, more on that later…
- Coca-Cola Cool Recipes – again, remains of the collection
- Campbell’s Simply Delicious Recipes – I used this a lot, and it has some great tasting, easy recipes, all of which you can find online now.
- Easy Cooking with Brand Names – I have no comment here. It’s pretty, but I don’t think I ever used it. It’s just a nice looking book.
- Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook – Everything You Need to Know to Cook (1996) – this was a wedding gift, I believe. I must have used it once or twice, because I have a post-it note flagging the page with the banana bread recipe: “stick butter, buttermilk”. Crap, now I opened it to read the note and felt an overwhelming nostalgia that’s urging me to keep it. The struggle is real, folks. Must… let… it… go!
- Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook – I think this one actually belongs to my sister. Yup, there’s a note just inside the cover. Definitely not mine, and definitely doesn’t fit in my kitchen. It’s huge!!
That’s my list, and I wrote far more than I anticipated. I have other things to do, like feeding the children. It’s time for lunch!!
Little M.S. Runner 