Family Recipe Books

A copy of our Beaver family recipe book

One of the yummy recipes in the book

Since our family, immediate and extended, seems to be growing by the day, we mutually decided to just buy gifts for the little ones this year and forgo our usual exchanging of names. I still wanted to do a little something for everyone but was having difficulty coming up with what would be an appropriate gift for everyone. Being in my first trimester, I found myself craving my grandmother’s vegetable soup recipe, followed by her slippery pot pie recipe, followed by my other grandmother’s jam tarts. After becoming really bummed out that I did not have recipes for either of the three items, I knew what had to be done…every family would receive a recipe book for Christmas filled with all of our personal recipes!

I began the process by letting my family members know my plans and asking each family to submit two or more of their favorite or most famous recipes. I included a template to make it a little easier for them to type in ingredients and directions as an attachment and asked them to send it back to me a few weeks before Christmas. After I assembled all of the templates, emails, and hand-written recipes (for my non-tech-savvy family members), I made copies for each family. With the help of my awesome mother, we cut and bound the recipes and laminated the front and back covers of the books about one hour before Christmas celebrations were to begin!

Although the books were a lot of work, I was so happy with how they looked. Now, not only do I have something nostalgic that I can cherish for years to come and pass on to future generations, I can satisfy all of my cravings any time they hit!

The recipe book for the Dalby family

Another delicious entry to the recipe book