We all have these. The loose and loved recipes. So much history and time went into collecting these treasures. I always wonder about women who didn’t have technology and share recipes with their church groups and friends on hand written pieces of paper. Baking and trading tastes of their treasured curated collections.

My book of recipes started with what my mother taught me. “If you want to know how to make something, check the Better Homes and Garden Cook Book,” she said. So in college, I was out on my own to hunt and gather as an independent woman. I made my way to the Books-A-Million in sticky, humid Savannah, Georgia to buy the cookbook you see above. It was perfect with the checkered red and white cover. The binder clip part has seen better days, as I have clipped and unclipped it several times when gathering a spread for an entire meal.

Since college I’ve been adding recipes to my portfolio. Collecting the best of the best. The pages are torn and dirty, and by dirty I mean unsanitary. Normally I would see this as a sign of love, however I’m starting to see my recipe portfolio as messy and a place of disorganization. This is my church cookbook, an assembly of items given to us from family and friends, and of course our favorite magazines throughout the years. Most of the recipes are adapted and I’ve perfected them for my purposes.

I am on a mission to tidy this mess up! I’ll share my journey with you and let you into my would and what these recipes mean to me. There’s often a story of sorts behind where each recipe came from, or when we had it the first time.

Look out for recipes marked at the end of a post with a ‘Recipe Portfolio’ download. Print out the recipe and include it in your recipe portfolio.