If you’re looking for a way to organize recipes and you’d prefer not to use a binder, then the Michael’s Creative Year Recollections Menu Keepsake Planner or Recipe Keepsake book could be a better option for you. Let’s take a look at both!

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Meal Keepsake Planner

• Size: 5.1″ wide x 7.1″ high
• Coil binding
• Laminate cover
• This belongs to page in case your planner is lost
• Meal planning, inventories and recipe pages
• Tabs

The cover is the usual Recollections cardstock with laminate

The meal planning book is tiny! While it means the notebook weighs hardly anything, you’ll be a bit squished for writing space.

Approx 0.5″ thick.

Recipe pages

Functional design – the page size is just a big too small. I’d probably need 1.5 or 2 pages for 1 recipe.

Weekly meal planning

Grocery list Pages

Note that the meal planning pages are printed on the back side of the shopping list pages. I.e. you get 4 pages for each week.

Pantry Inventory

Favorite Meals

Each divider features a different design

Planner stickers

All of the Recollections Planners include stickers. Disappointing that these aren’t really relevant to meal planning

Pros

• Affordable
• Lightweight
• In addition to recipe pages there are meal planning, favorite meals, pantry inventory, fridge inventory, grocery list
• Coil binding means you can fold the notebook back completely on itself and it will lay flat
• Sturdy tabs

Cons

• Page size is so small you’ll probably run out of space quickly
• The planner stickers don’t really have anything to do with cooking

Recipe Book

If you need more room to write, the large recipe book may be the better option of the 2. The page size is 9″ wide x 11.5″ high which means it does weigh a bit.

There’s also a medium size recipe book in a similar style to this big one.

My sister stocks the recipe book in her planner supplies shop.

Approx 0.7″ thick

At the front of the recipe book is a pocket folder although I’m not sure how much you could fit in it as the coil doesn’t have much room to expand.

Contents

Recipe Pages

I much prefer the recipe pages in the large version over the mini meal planner book

There’s a few different styles depending on the section. Definitely not a fan of this mint as you can hardly read the text printed in white.

Some recipe pages are dot grid and some are lined. If you want to add a photo for each recipe you may be squished for space if you glue it in. Instead I’d print the photo, cut and use washi tape to adhere to the page (on one side only to create a ‘flap’ so you can still read the recipe underneath).

Grocery List & Meal Planner

Really well thought out grocery list pages. The meal planning pages are on the back so if you tear a page out, everything you need for the week is in the one place.

The servings suggestion is another feature I really like (and haven’t seen before!)

Special occasions similar to an important dates page in a planner. Not sure how much use people would get out of these pages. I’d probably convert it into recipes to try

Kitchen conversions – always handy! Plus the page design is a really good combination of functional + cute

Favorite recipes

Kitchen Substitutions

Dividers

Different designs for each category:

• Breakfasts
• Sides
• Main Dishes
• Desserts
• Misc
• Meal Planning

This one’s my fav – super cute!

Notes

Tabs

The tabs are large and easy to grip with laminate to protect them from damage. The cover also extends beyond the tabs

Pocket folder

Planner Stickers

Pros

• Affordable
• Lightweight
• Functional & decorative meal planning stickers
• In addition to recipe pages there are meal planning, favorite meals, pantry inventory, fridge inventory, grocery list
• Coil binding means you can fold the notebook back completely on itself and it will lay flat

Cons

• The notebook is heavy
• Not enough recipe type sections

If you like these recipe books, my sister stocks them (along with plenty of other Recollections products!) in her planner supplies shop: Carefully Crafted

Planning tips

• Best paper planners if you have large handwriting (and planners you should avoid) 
• Overwhelmed by the planner community? Read this post 
• How I plan my week: my 6 step process 

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