ld love your advise. We are going away for 2 months. How do I "pack" my favorite recipes? ...

B

barb_b

Well-known member
I am an old school person that loves to touch and feel my paper copy of a recipe either from a printer or a cookbook. But, now that I have been collecting them for travel, it it a BIG pile. I really can't read recipes off an iPhone. So, any suggestions. I am open to purchasing new technology, just not sure what would work. Many of my favorite recipes in the pile are from my friends at eat.at. Is their a way to scan and put into folders in a mini computer?? Would value your thoughts.

My stack of recipes is easily 2 inches. This is not a good use of weight for my luggage.

Thanks!

Best,

Barb

 
Lots of suggestions:

- copy them all onto a stick and use library equipment to print them when you want them

- make a deal with the admin office of your next location, to print off what you need from time to time.

- buy a used mini printer Canon made one 20 years ago that is so terrific that they still make it

- copy the files you want and email them to yourself. You can then access them again, at the library if you have no mini computer

- making PDFs ensures that the formats are universally accessible

- borrow or rent a laptop for a couple of months. I often bake directly from my laptop recipe. If you were in the neighbourhood, I'd give you one, or the little printer.

- don't forget that some of your favourite concoctions need just a touch of some weird or difficult to find ingredient that you may want to pack a bit of to take with you

-

 
I have Paprika app on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook and

I am able to sync among all three. The format makes it pretty easy to read on the iphone which I do when I travel. I mainly use the iPad when at home. I have about 1,500 recipes collected, and as long as you use categories, searching is very easy. I love this software.

 
Marg, do you know the printer model number? I will soon be

faced with a similar travel situation to Barb and like the sound of acquiring a mini printer. Thank you for the other great tips too. I so agree about taking along small quantities of favorite concoctions. I love doing that when going camping and found it helpful to use bottles even as small as spice jars as they actually hold quite a bit, can easily be tucked in a box with other 'pantry items' or an ice chest, and tend to not leak if the jar should tip over (though sometimes I add a small plastic wrap barrier before topping with the lid as extra insurance OR I put the bottle in a ziplock or sandwich bag and seal it to prevent potential spills making a mess). For instance, if I want to whip up an Asian style meal on the portable stove I will put together a bottle that includes a concoction of maybe sesame oil, chile garlic sauce, touch of oyster sauce or hoisin, and soy sauce or coconut aminos. I do it by taste at home then all I have to do is add it to the dish onsite. The same for marinades and salad dressings I plan to use. Makes it easy to take what I think I'll need vs many big bottles.

 
I'm seriously considering Paprika. Either that or

Mastercook. Have you tried Mastercook, rhoward? I'm wondering the pros and cons.

 
This is very similar. I bought one in 2000 and they made exactly the same thing until

about 2 years ago. But this varies very little. And I believe I paid $350 for it then.

I used to pack the tiny little zip bags when I kitchened in France. Not that France is noticeably short of cuisine supplies but when one needs only 1 tsp, 3 E is a big price for each of about 15 items.

But at our home in the Caribbean, there was often little in the way of exotic supplies. It did get much better over the years but we would pack a bottle of liquid, with a bag under the lid then wrap the bag all around the bottle, tie it up and then put into a ziplock which was then surrounded by rolls of toilet paper, which was not available in our (my) favourite brand. What a prissss I was. Old H was such a good packer. And he carried the suitcases.

In fact, I used to go to our local butcher with a list of what meats I wanted and how I wanted them packed, individually, vacuum sealed. He has numbers to put on the package which corresponded with the list, so that when I went to customs I could save some on duty. Duty is a LOT. I'd just fax the list over to the store and pick it up the day before departure, frozen solid like I could not do in our fridge.

aaah those good old days...................

https://estore.canon.ca/en-CA/catalog/printers-all-in-ones/photo-inkjet-printers/pixma-tr150-with-battery-pack

 
Great tips, Marg, love the butcher-frozen-meat idea! And oooh, that lil printer

is darling. I usually just save a few recipes of interest in my email before I travel then work off of my phone while cooking. Not ideal but it gets the job done. Like Barb, I'm rather old school in that I too enjoy having the paper copy of a recipe available. A mini printer would achieve that. Will be giving more thought to one. Thank you for your input, Marg.

Now, if I can find a recipe software I like then all would be right with the world. Got started using Living Cookbook quite a few years ago but my interest waned about the same time their customer support lapsed so I abandoned the recipe storage. It would be reallllly nice to get all my recipes into a program that's easy to use. Would be a big project for sure but rewarding.

 
It was a BJ-10e, Canon, which did not change until about 2 years ago, other than the number.

A used one would be great but only if the cartridges are still available.

I used it for business when I was travelling and I sure would not take a printer just for recipes.

 
Barb, what about putting multiple recipes on one page.

You could do a copy and paste of the recipes into a Word or Wordperfect document and change the font to something small (I usually use a 9 or 10 Verdana in Wordperfect for easy readability) then fit as many recipes on a page as you can. You can even change the top, bottom and side margins to allow more space on the page for your recipes.

Also printing back to back vs one-sided would reduce the amount of paper.

 
Will you have a computer with you> Take pictures of the recipes and then when you

want it, send yourself an email (as others have suggested). Or scan them into a thumb drive IF you will have a computer with you

 
I used Mastercook for years until I got my MacBook. It was

pretty good also, but wasn't supported on the Mac. I think it is now. I really like Paprika because you can import recipes so easily from the internet. You just go to the page and select save.
Also, I like the fact that I can go from my Mac to the iPad and the iPhone because it syncs across all of them.

 
Yes, there is a way, but I we can make it easier than scanning them...

If you want to save to a “mini computer” I’m going to assume you mean a laptop of some sort that’s going to travel with you. There are a few ways to do that.

1) save any online recipes, including from here, to a web based recipe site such as paprika (though I haven’t personally used that one. I use CopyMeThat, which I love, but currently does not have an apple/iPhone app). Either way, if you use a web based app, you will need to be someplace with an internet connection (or smartphone service if using that) to access everything. Bonus: these often will create grocery lists and menu plans, which saves a step. I adore not having to make grocery lists of recipes anymore.

2) you save recipes from the internet directly to your computer (or flash drive). I’ve been doing this waaay back since Gail’s swap. I created a recipe folder on my computer, within that folder I created category folders. When on my computer and I had a recipe page in front of me, instead of print, choose “save as” then navigate to the folder you want to put it and choose if you want to save as text only (back in Gail days this my only workable option) but now if you have a word processing program, like msword, you can choose that. Then your recipes are all stored in categories on your computer, though not as pretty and without photos like the web applications in option 1, but it gets the job done on content. For years I kept a second copy of all my recipes on a flash drive I kept with me. This way I had my recipes with me and used my work computer or whoever I was visiting’s computer. No internet needed.

3) if you don’t want to hunt for all your recipes online and save them, take photos of all the pages. This is a quick and dirty way of just getting your printouts copied to take with. Then if you have a smartphone, and can read the recipes (oh the tiny print!) there or transfer the photos to the computer and read them there.

Back in the day I printed, then tossed paper recipes at will. (Well, I kept favorites in a binder so I wasn’t a terrible paper waster.) Later when I got a laptop, I was not above bringing it into the kitchen and reading from that. Now, though it’s tinier print than my eyes like, I use my phone in the kitchen. (It helps to rotate to read horizontal vs vertical).

Hope this helps and gives you some ideas that might work.

 
YOu can enlarge the photo of your recipe on your phone to make it easier to read.

"Then if you have a smartphone, and can read the recipes (oh the tiny print!) there "

You might have to read it in "pieces" but since these are your personal recipes you already kind of know them from doing previously--so it will be a good reminder for amounts and times especially.

 
Yes, one can do that, but the original post said they didn’t want to. Hence my reply.

I personally do use my phone, but I will admit it can be a pain to scroll around with sticky hands. Simply commiserating is all.

 
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