I recently made homemade pasta with a friend of mine. I was dying to experiment with my new Kitchen Aid, and I decided pasta was what I wanted to tackle. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen flour and dough get in so many places it shouldn’t be in my kitchen. We made a superb mess, but when it was all said and done we had a great time making and eating the fettuccini Alfredo. Experiences like that give me hope that it’s worth it to try new recipes.

However, I’ve noticed that my desire to try new recipes rarely fits into my real-life plans. I have clipped out new recipes from magazines, borrowed them from friends, looked them up online, and have stashed them all over the house. Once I compiled them all I realized I had more than I could possible ever try. Thanks to real life I knew I’d rarely have the time and energy to try new concoctions out. Real-life experiences have taught us that a new recipe is rarely easy, so we opt for things instead that we already are familiar with. Why make life harder than it needs to be, right?

In my efforts to streamline the many recipes I love and incorporate new ones into our Family Favorites Collection I created a binder of recipes. I know it’s cute to use the little cards that say, “From the Kitchen of…” but I opted for photocopying recipes and filing them into a binder with dividers separating categories such as breakfast items, side dishes, main dishes, and desserts. Then I took all of the recipes I want to try (and got rid of those I wanted to try, but probably never would) and stuck those in the front pocket. As I’m menu planning I pull out the recipes I’d like to take for a spin and try to add them in on a night when I’ll probably be more inclined to have the energy to devote to it.

Question: What is the last new recipe you tried and have added to your favorites list?