Remember my battered first cookbook that I still use? Well, although my old cookbook has a place on my shelf, I love new technology, too.

Here’s my newest cookbook:

While I continue to collect new cookbooks in print, I am starting to also embrace digital cookbooks. This has the dual benefit of the books being portable and prevents me from running out of shelf space. On my last Christmas wish list was the digital version of one hundreds-of-pages-long book.

But how do I capture new recipes I create?

Some new recipes are scribbled, by hand, on a piece of paper and then converted on my computer into a Word document.

Others, at the suggestion of our techie youngest son, are created directly in my iPad.

I use the Evernote App for this task. I create a new note, and record the ingredients and directions in several ways.

Type them into the note using the iPad’s keypad

• Take a photo of my hand-written note with the iPad’s camera
• Record the audio instructions into the note
• Take a photo of the food at various stages of completion with the iPad’s camera

The combination of the iPad’s capabilities and the functionality of Evernote make recording a new

recipe a breeze.

Here’s how I recorded a grilling recipe as we experimented with our EGG barbeque. Note the photos of the steak, which visually demonstrate the final the color (temperature) of the beef.

The iPad also has the benefit of finding recipes on food websites! 

Do I have one perfect solution?  No.

But I have fun collecting cookbooks and recipes, experimenting with my own creations, and, of course, sampling the food and sharing the creations with friends and family!