A Monumental Task But I Guess It Was Inevitable

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tx smoker

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Apr 14, 2013
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Lago Vista, Texas
UGH!! What have I gotten myself into this time?? As a most of you know I tend to create the vast majority of the recipes for meals we eat around here. A couple years ago, after learning what I'd learned from this forum I finally started writing them down as I went. Then I'd type it into a word document, save it, print it, and put it in my Big Back book. You also know I have a pretty extensive photographic library of the stuff I've made. Pictures are taken of pretty much everything, especially new stuff I've come up with. As my horizons have expanded, so has the Big Black Book. There are a LOT of recipes in there. Turns out we have two brother in laws that both love to cook but don't have the creativity to make up stuff on their own. They just follow other recipes. Tracy had this "brainstorm" that it'd be nice for me to share my recipes with them. She thought it'd be nice if they had an entire array of original recipes that you're not gonna find with Google. No problem there....I can just print them or email the stuff. Nope, that's not good enough for Tracy, who like me, is the quintessential perfectionist. She wants me to create a recipe for every meal that is perfectly formatted with pictures of the final product and step-by-step instructions. She is then going to have them glossy printed and bound into real cookbooks to give as Christmas presents. Oh joy!! Won't this be a ton of fun? It's gonna be right up there with root canal folks...just outright painful. Oh well, I got started on it today and have about 15 of them done. Probably only another 120 or so to go.

Why me Lord? I've been good,
Robert
 
UGH!! What have I gotten myself into this time?? As a most of you know I tend to create the vast majority of the recipes for meals we eat around here. A couple years ago, after learning what I'd learned from this forum I finally started writing them down as I went. Then I'd type it into a word document, save it, print it, and put it in my Big Back book. You also know I have a pretty extensive photographic library of the stuff I've made. Pictures are taken of pretty much everything, especially new stuff I've come up with. As my horizons have expanded, so has the Big Black Book. There are a LOT of recipes in there. Turns out we have two brother in laws that both love to cook but don't have the creativity to make up stuff on their own. They just follow other recipes. Tracy had this "brainstorm" that it'd be nice for me to share my recipes with them. She thought it'd be nice if they had an entire array of original recipes that you're not gonna find with Google. No problem there....I can just print them or email the stuff. Nope, that's not good enough for Tracy, who like me, is the quintessential perfectionist. She wants me to create a recipe for every meal that is perfectly formatted with pictures of the final product and step-by-step instructions. She is then going to have them glossy printed and bound into real cookbooks to give as Christmas presents. Oh joy!! Won't this be a ton of fun? It's gonna be right up there with root canal folks...just outright painful. Oh well, I got started on it today and have about 15 of them done. Probably only another 120 or so to go.

Why me Lord? I've been good,
Robert

Awesome. Looking forward to this.
 
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So are we going to see you on The NY Times bestseller list!?

But in all seriousness, it sounds like fun. I wanted to do this a few years back, because my wife complained that I had random recipes written down everywhere and throughout multiple notebooks. I went into Microsoft word and tried typing recipes onto recipe card templates...some of them wouldn’t fit so I gave up because I wanted everything neatly typed out in one page.

Now with the propensity to take pictures of our food nowadays for social media and because of the advancement in cellphone camera technology, I would need a much bigger book/template to create something like you’re doing. I would want a picture with each recipe.

And sounds like fun, I meant making a cookbook for personal use. I could see that changing by making 15 copies!
 
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Lol my wife would do this as well. She volunteers me to smoke stuff for teacher PTO lunches at the last minute or tell me she needs a pork butt smoked for the office lunch the next day. I hope you have plenty of beer on hand!
 
Robert I do not have the programs needed to do it. Thanks anyway

Richie...I don't have any programs either. I take pics of the meals with my phone, pull the pics off the phone and put them into a folder on my computer that I name according to the meal. From there I just copy the pic and paste it into a Word document. No special tools needed and no assembly required. Pretty simple stuff

Robert
 
Hi Robert,
I had people here & elsewhere tell me I should write a Book like you're talking about.
But it would be for selling.
I'm perfectly capable of writing a recipe Book, but it would have to be much like my "Step By Step Index" is, with lots of decent sized pictures. IMHO a recipe like I write is next to useless without nice pictures along the way & of the finished product.
I decided not to write the book, because it would cost an arm & a Leg to print a book with that many pictures that size with each recipe.
So I decided to just do a real good job on my Step by Steps, because it doesn't cost me a thing, and anybody can use it or ignore it for Free Too.

Bear
 
So are we going to see you on The NY Times bestseller list!?

Joe...I've never met you but love you like a brother. I can't help but think however that mayhap you're imbibing in the same thing Steve was enjoying when he did his shrunken cast iron skillet post :emoji_laughing: Here is the reality of it: I'm 56 years old, have done nothing but work since I was 6, and I'm one very small step from retiring. My objective at this point in life is less work, not more. I do very much appreciate the kind words though!!

But in all seriousness, it sounds like fun. I wanted to do this a few years back, because my wife complained that I had random recipes written down everywhere and throughout multiple notebooks. I went into Microsoft word and tried typing recipes onto recipe card templates...some of them wouldn’t fit so I gave up because I wanted everything neatly typed out in one page.

Everything in my Big Black Book is on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. There's no way I could fit some of the recipes on an index card. The ones in the book do not have pics but everything Tracy wants to print is going to have one. Sad part is the time I've spent responding to this thread I could have gotten a couple more recipes done for her book. Oh well...I already told her that it's highly unlikely (read: have you lost your ever loving mind?!?!?!?) that it's gonna be ready for this year.

Next year's gifts may be covered though,
Robert
 
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Lol my wife would do this as well. She volunteers me to smoke stuff for teacher PTO lunches at the last minute or tell me she needs a pork butt smoked for the office lunch the next day. I hope you have plenty of beer on hand!

Damn John...sounds like your screen canoe has a larger mesh screen than mine does. Tracy does seem to know how long some of this stuff takes to cook so most times I get at least 24 hours notice. I do stuff for her office, the church, for her to take to the Dell Children's hospital, the assisted living home that she's adopted, etc. I love doing those because it's cooking. This menial office stuff is for the Girl Friday, and she is seemingly absent.

Where did she go??
Robert
 
I'm perfectly capable of writing a recipe Book, but it would have to be much like my "Step By Step Index" is, with lots of decent sized pictures. IMHO a recipe like I write is next to useless without nice pictures along the way & of the finished product.

Ditto that John. I thought about doing a step-by-step for Tracy's book, much like I do when I post something here. As you said though, there are a couple of problems. First is the time it'd take to put something like that together. Second is that I want to get everything for a recipe on one page. If I did the step-by-step I'd be looking at an 800 page document. That's just WAY more than I signed on for.

Didn't sign up, I got recruited,
Robert
 
Ever considered buying a cookbook program? Or if you decide to use Word, build yourself a template so each recipe has consistent headers, text boxes and picture boxes. Then if you assemble a cookbook (electronic or printed), everything is already formatted.
 
Oh well...I already told her that it's highly unlikely (read: have you lost your ever loving mind?!?!?!?) that it's gonna be ready for this year.

Next year's gifts may be covered though,
Robert
You could do Volume I this year and Volume II next year.
 
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You could do Volume I this year and Volume II next year.

Good idea but nope, not gonna happen. I'm gonna do one volume only. That will be next year. I'll get all of the current recipes done and add any new ones as they come up. Then first part of December 2020 I give Tracy a flash drive with everything on it and I'm done!!

Going once, going twi...nope, one and done
Robert
 
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