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Clipping recipes - the great magazine cull



I started collecting food magazines about fifteen years ago. I was obsessed with food, cooking and the ins and outs of the Australian food scene.

Fast forward to late last year, the top shelf of Olive's wardrobe was groaning with back issues of Delicious, Donna Hay, Good Taste, Vogue Entertaining, Gourmet Traveller & Cuisine.

They were organised by title and season so I could pull out a set of Autumnal issues in March and seek inspiration. But truth be told, less and less of the recipes grabbed my interest. I'm not interested in cheffy tricks and complicated processes anymore. Nowadays I'm looking for quick, simple recipes that get me through the week and stand up to being reheated when Mr Di-licious comes home late from work.

Faced with the prospect of moving boxes and boxes of magazines that I hardly looked at anymore, I decided to get rid of them...but not before one last flick through in order to clip any recipes that still caught my eye.

I made a big dent in the pile but I still ended up moving boxes of them to our new place..three months ago.  This afternoon I pulled an armful down off the shelf and started clipping again.

I've found a stack of recipes using plums that'll come in handy next December - roasted plums & spiced plum chutney. An awesome sounding lavender jelly recipe and more cake recipes. The nicest surprise was finding notes scrawled in the margins of meals we loved 10 years ago. Unsurprisingly, they're the type of recipes I want to cook now. 

Of course clipping recipes is all well and good. Instead of shelves of magazines I now have multiple boxes of recipes waiting to be filed. A project for another day......

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