My Harvest Cookbook

I mentioned in a previous post about my harvest cookbook and that I would share it with you.  It has been several years since I've looked at this cookbook.  Let's start out by defining this "cookbook".  On our harvesting days, we traveled from home to southern Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, the South and North Dakotas.  We lived in a trailer travel, first a regular camper and than one that we remodeled to suit our needs.  This adventure each summer for sixteen years was not a vacation but a way to keep things going in the farm economy of the late 1980's, 1990's and the early 2000's.  We were many times several miles and I mean around 50 miles from any type of grocery store, convenience store, etc.  I had to be organized with my grocery purchases to feed our group of about dozen people for at least a week at a time.  Hence, the "cookbook".  It became my organization tool for not only menu plans, but shopping lists and recipes.  I had enough plans for about 4 weeks and than I would repeat the process.  It worked amazingly well.  The problem is that I should be using this same "cookbook" today however, I only feed 2 on a regular basis.  There are many, many recipes that I could easily use from this "cookbook" by paring down the amounts.  I think I just got lazy about it because of convenience to a more close grocery venue.  It really does pay to be organized all the time with meal plans, recipes and shopping lists regardless of how many you are feeding because it not only can save you money, but can definitely save you time! The added benefit would be that you wouldn't have that "what am I having for dinner tonight" (or supper as we call it here in West Central Minnesota).  I vow to start using this "cookbook" again and add new recipes and meal plans along the way - who knows maybe in a year I'll have 52 weeks of recipes and than repeat each year - ooooohh - I think I like that idea!!

Enjoy looking at this  "cookbook". (I surely could have been a bit more creative!  I'll work on that!)
-Julie-

P.S. In my new organizational mode, I will try to post recipes from this "cookbook" each Monday so you too can be a harvest cook!

My "cookbook" - you'd think I could have taken the binder sticker off - geez!

Notice the slight bend in the "cookbook" - I believe it was sat upon by one of the girls while shopping!

Recipes that fell out at sometime pushed into the left pocket and Weekly Menu Plan on right - wow!  I did use a pretty fancy font and icon for this page - hee-hee!

Shopping List - I would make copies so I could cross out my purchases.  As you can see,  I obviously would forget a few things when I was putting the list together.  I forgot to mention that I would work on this "cookbook" during home times so I could use my computer and printer as I didn't bring them along on the harvest trail - Laptops either weren't invented yet or most likely I couldn't afford one!

My most fancy daily menu plan!! Notice only dinner and supper - the guys were on their own for breakfast - because  they would have rather slept an extra half hour and eat cereal and toast than eat one of my most fabulous breakfasts! Really!?! That was okay I got to sleep in a little longer too!

Recipes followed my daily plans. I even put page protectors on everything.  I must have thought they were gold or something - hee-hee!  No the reality is that I am a very messy cook. period. Also, I would get great magazines with recipes and just cut out and paste them to a sheet of paper.  This way I didn't have to re-type everything or forgot a part of the recipe.  We developed new tastes with new recipes!

Continued next Monday...........