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Offline Nate

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keeping a journal/notes
« on: September 27, 2014, 02:11:38 PM »
Keeping a journal and or notes:

My wife and I are firm believers in keeping a journal and/or notes when we do our cooking, canning/preserving, smoking, etc.  Why is this important you ask, well let’s think about this for a minute. 

What is a recipe?  A recipe is nothing more than a set of instructions on how somebody did something and what they used to make it with and how they prepared it.  Correct?  My wife and I find a basic recipe for something that we would like to make/eat and we make it.  As we are making it, we may change some of the spices or the ingredients or even how it is actually cooked.  Whenever we make changes we annotate it on the recipe card, which in all actuality the recipe card is a form of a journal and/or notes. 

Let’s look at another example.  Say you get yourself a 10lb pork butt and you want to smoke it and make either a pulled or chopped pork dish.  You remove the meat from the package, rub with spices, let sit for a day or whatever, start your smoker, choose your flavor of wood, get smoker to whatever temp you are wanting to cook the meat at, place the meat in smoker, meat cooks for a pre-determined amount of time.  Well during the cooking process the smoker either raised or dropped in temp, causing the meat to either be over coked or undercooked.  You determine the cause, make adjustments, and annotate in your recipe/journal so that you can avoid the mistake/problem the next time.

Now, I understand different strokes for different folks.  Some folks do keep journals/notes and some folks don’t keep journals/notes.  I am just trying to offer some advice on ways to improve techniques, outcomes and efficiency.     

So what can you use to keep a journal, notes or recipe’s:
Index cards (whatever size works for you)
Ledgers
Notebooks (like whats used in school)
3 ring binders with dividers and filler paper
Recipe cards W/ recipe boxes
Etc

Try different things and see what works for you.  My wife and I use several different methods, I like to use 5x8 index cards and keep them in a metal card box and my wife makes notes on her computer.  Give it a try and see what happens.
If you need the promise of eternity in the kingdom of heaven to be a good person … You were never a good person in the first place!

Offline Farmer Jon

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Re: keeping a journal/notes
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2015, 02:18:33 PM »
I need to do a better job of this. I have my notes taped to the inside of the cupboard door. Its all too easy to grab my phone and google things to refresh my memory. Some day we may not have that luxury. The internet was out one day when we were canning peaches and I had to remember where I put my canning books.
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Offline Nate

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Re: keeping a journal/notes
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2015, 02:52:54 PM »
that is actually not a bad place as well!?
If you need the promise of eternity in the kingdom of heaven to be a good person … You were never a good person in the first place!

Offline TexasRedNeck

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Re: keeping a journal/notes
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2015, 10:30:23 PM »
Good idea Nate.  Its like a reloading log book....
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Offline Nate

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Re: keeping a journal/notes
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2015, 10:47:00 PM »
yours might be a bit more important, because somebody could lose a finger or hand if you mess up.
If you need the promise of eternity in the kingdom of heaven to be a good person … You were never a good person in the first place!

 

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