My cabinet after purging and reorganizing ... it feels great to have more space!
Okay, I guess you can tell from the time between posts that I was determined to fix my cookbook problem 
! Of course, it was not a time consuming project, but it still took some thought to sort through my 14 years worth of recipe guides.
I did have a hard time parting with some, but here is what I did (the “got rid of” ones are going into my yard sale stash for September) …
1. I got rid of most cookbooks that were too specific (vegetables, cookies, muffins … etc.). I did keep one on chicken and another on cookies (I had 3 on cookies, so I only kept one).
2. I eliminated my Taste of Home magazines. This was HARD to do, and I still receive the magazine, yet I knew I would be excited about future issues and not look through old ones. I am going to create a recipe folder to put new recipes in that I try and like from future magazines.
3. I purged any that I considered to be “old” (some have ingredients, such as “kitchen bouquet” that I have never seen or heard of).
4. I took out any that I have never used b/c I probably never will.
All of that left me with a nice stack of books. My cookbooks are on the left, and I have a small stash of “kitchen wisdom” type of books on the left. My ziploc baggie contains recipes that I need to put in a folder … most are ones that I either printed off of the internet and liked or ones that I have requested from others b/c I tried and liked the recipes.
Maybe this will give you a little bit of inspiration to do some purging yourself. I even went through some other cabinets and got rid of some other things I was not using (I probably need to do more! ). I do feel better b/c I actually have two empty shelves in my kitchen cabinet now (and that was even with moving my antique “Oven Serve” into the cabinet … yippee !) I also need to add that 4 of the books actually came from my kitchen counter. I was able to move them up into the cabinet … aaahhh! Until next time … .
Great job on cleaning up. I have more cookbooks just laying next to my bed than I can read in a year. Thanks for coming by my blog and checking out the pulled pork recipe!
You’ve inspired me. My cookbooks look almost exactly like your “before” picture. And I use online recipes usually. I’ll follow your lead and get rid of most of them. I hadn’t even thought of them as clutter until now. Keep it up!