The Family Cookbook Project

Blog

  • Deadline to Print for Christmas Delivery

    If you are planning to use your cookbooks as Christmas gifts this year, you have just about 2 weeks until the Christmas print deadline.

    If you plan to have your cookbooks printed by us and in your hands by Christmas, the deadline to order and make payment is Monday, November 30th. There will be an extended deadline, but expedited shipping will be required. Let us know if we can help!

    With the pandemic quarantine , so many people had extra time on their hands and put it to good use and worked on their cookbooks. We are now seeing historic levels of editors submitting cookbooks for printing already. So don’t wait until the 30th if you can get your cookbook submitted earlier.

    The earlier your cookbook order is in production, the earlier you will receive your cookbooks!

  • Freezing Cookie Dough Saves Time

    In our house, there is nothing like a warm, soft cookie right out of the oven. However since it is not practical to make dough for only a few cookies at a time, the next best thing is to freeze your cookie dough and pull out enough cookies for your immediate needs.

     

    Freezing cookies also provides time saving opportunities when you want to get ready for a holiday cookie swap in November or getting ready for a school bake sale anytime.

    How you best freeze cookies depends on what type of cookie you are making. The FamilyCookbook Project had collected thousands of cookie recipes if you need a suggestion.

    Cookies like chocolate chip and oatmeal-raisin freeze best if you make the actual cookie beforehand. Scoop out the dough just as if you were about to bake it and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a Silpat (they can be close, but not touching). Instead of putting it into the oven, but them into the freezer for at least 6 hours instead. Once frozen, the dough balls get sealed inside a plastic freezer bag and when it is time to bake, you are ready to go.

    Cookies like shortbread or sandies, or any smooth slice-and-bake cookies can be pressed into logs, wrapped in wax paper and frozen solid. Prepare the dough as usual, then shape it into one or two logs that can be covered with wax paper and placed in a plastic freezer bag. When you’re ready to bake, let them warm on the counter for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing. You might also want to let the logs thaw in the fridge for a few hours before you’re ready to use the dough. Slice the cookies into thick disks and you’re ready to put them in the oven as usual.

    The third type of cookies that can be frozen are cut-out cookies, like sugar cookies and many holiday cookies. The dough for these cookies can be frozen in disks and then stacked together with wax paper between them. When ready to bake, thaw until bendable and continue with the recipe.

    Most frozen cookies will need an extra minute or two in the oven. Otherwise, prepping and baking the cookies is exactly the same as in the recipe.

     

    Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!

  • FamilyCookbookProject.com Named Best Publishing Website

    FamilyCookbookProject.com Named Best Publishing Website

    The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) has been named the Best Publishing Website in the Web Marketing Association’s 24th annual WebAward Competition for Web site development. The Family Cookbook Project creates personalized cookbooks for individuals, families, church groups and schools. This is the fifth year that Family Cookbook Project has been recognized for their Website excellence.

    “The Great Family Cookbook Project is a website dedicated to helping families collect and preserve cherished recipes into a printed cookbook that can be passed down from one generation to the next,” says Chip Lowell, Co-Publisher and Technical Director of the Family Cookbook Project. “We are proud that our efforts have been recognized by the Web Marketing Association with this WebAward. We will continue to develop our site to help families, schools and church groups create both online and printed cookbooks that become treasured heirlooms.”

    The Family Cookbook Project Website was started as a project in 2004 to help one family collect and organize a family cookbook. Overwhelming feedback from those who used the website led to its continued development and public launch. Currently, more than 81,000 families and groups have started family cookbooks using the website and contributors have entered more than 2 million individual recipes.

    “Personalized cookbooks have been around since the 1950s, however the process of collecting and organizing recipes has always been a labor intensive project for the cookbook editor,” says Lowell. “Now it’s easy and cost effective to have your very own cookbook printed. The Family Cookbook Project website provides step by step instructions and tools to help cookbook editors invite others to participate and allow them to enter their favorite recipes directly into the online system. The editor then simply reviews and edits the recipes, selects printing options, and sends the cookbook to be printed. The finished printed cookbooks are then received by the editor in only a few weeks”.

    The Family Cookbook Project Website previously been recognized as the Best Publishing Website in 2011 and Best Family Website in 2005. It also was recognized in 2012 and 2009 with the Standard of Excellence WebAward.

    More than 2,000 sites from 45 countries were adjudicated in 96 industry categories during this year’s WebAward competition. Entries were judged on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology. The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of relevant disciplines of Web site development. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

    About the Web Marketing Association

    Since 1997, the annual WebAward Competition is conducted by the Web Marketing Association, an independent organization founded with the purpose of evaluating and recognizing the standard of excellence on the World Wide Web. Award programs run by the Web Marketing Association include the WebAwardCompetition for Website Development, the Internet Advertising Competition and the MobileWebAwards.

    About the Family Cookbook Project

    The Family Cookbook Project is dedicated to helping individuals and families collect and preserve the time-honored recipes that are so important to our family traditions. The website at www.familycookbookproject.comprovides step-by-step instructions and online tools to create a valuable family heirloom. Personalized cookbooks are also used by schools and church groups as important fundraisers. Groups looking to create cookbooks for fundraising efforts, can also check out www.cookbookfundraiser.com.

  • Great Gift For The Chef In Your Life

    Buying an interesting gift for someone who likes to cook is always a challenge. I mean how many squash peelers or specialized kitchen gadgets does a person really need anyway?

    Whether you were looking for a Christmas gift for a chef, or a birthday gift for someone who loves to cook, one gift that would be truly appreciated is a personalized cookbook from the Family Cookbook Project.

    Your chef can take the collection of recipes collected over many years from different sources and simply enter them into our simple, easy to use software program. When complete, all of those recipes would be contained in a single beautiful personalized cookbook.

    After entering the recipes, the software will help the user create a custom cookbook cover or select one of our templates, create automatic indexes and have printed cookbooks delivered directly to their door in a few short weeks.

    Family Cookbook Project personal cookbook software is available at Amazon.com.

    Here is the link to give as a gift:

    http://www.familycookbookproject.com/fcb-prepay-gift.asp

     

    Bill Rice is founder and Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories through customized printed cookbooks filled with treasured recipes. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!

  • Family Cookbook Project’s Chip Lowell Recognized for Great BBQ

    Family Cookbook Project Co-Founder, Chip Lowell took third place in the BBQ Competition at the RVA R.I.M.B.Y Festival (Right In My Back Yard) in Richmond, Virginia. This is the second year in a row that Chip has been recognized for his outstanding BBQ.

    This festival is about Building Community and Encouraging Adventure and benefited Beyond Boundaries, a Richmond-based non-profit specializing in guiding participants with disabilities on outdoor adventures. While this year’s festival was canceled because of the pandemic, the BBQ competition went on with the judges traveling to the participants’ homes to be wowed by the outstanding BBQ of the competitors.

    A masked Chip Lowell is far left in this photo

    The BBQ Competition featured North Carolina style pulled pork. Chip fired-up his large Green Egg smoker and slow cooked his Boston Butt to perfection. He also added Memphis style glazed spareribs and Mexican street corn to complete his entry.

    The judges awarded Chip third place overall for his efforts and he is already looking forward to competing again next year.

    Chip uses his BBQ expertise to manage the popular Facebook Group BBQRibsRecipes.

  • Scary and Fun Halloween Recipes

    Our Family Cookbook Editors have contributed more than 2 million recipes since FamilyCookbookProject.com started in 2004.  Most recipes are every day tried and true recipes that the family grew up with for generations. Some are specialty holiday recipes that only were made once a year.

    Here is an assortment of Halloween recipes for your to try with your family this October 31st. Click on the image to be taken to the recipe.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Bill Rice is Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect, preserve and share food memories by creating their own printed personal cookbooks. He is the author of The Wellfleet Oyster Cookbook (Available on Amazon) and the Cape Cod Cocktail Cookbook, both created using FamilyCookbookProject.com. He is also editor of the Donovan Family Cookbook, now it’s third printing.

    Follow Family Cookbook Project on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!

     

  • 2020 Cookbook Printing Deadlines For The Holidays

    Giving the gift of a beautiful personalized family cookbook is something that many, many of our cookbook editors are looking forward this holiday season. As such, this is by far the busiest time for printing your cookbook.

    Here are some deadlines to know about to make sure you have your cookbook print orders in hand when you want them:

    • Thanksgiving: Sunday, November 1st
    • Christmas: Monday, November 30th

    So now is the time to contact all of your contributors with your Reminder Tool and tell them to enter their recipes now before it is too late. We recommend using a recipe submission deadline a couple weeks ahead of your deadline. So for Thanksgiving, give your helpers a deadline of October 15th in order to give you time to review the recipes, make sure all of the extra spaces are removed and words are spelled correctly, and still have time to place your order before the printing deadline.

    And don’t feel you need to wait for the absolute deadline to submit your order either, those days and extremely busy and cookbooks are printed on a first come, first served basis. So the earlier your cookbook order is placed, the sooner you will have your cookbooks in hand.

    Family cookbooks make wonderful gifts for family and friends alike. The effort you put into your cookbook now will pay off for your entire family for years to come.

  • How to Get Your Recipes Into Your Family Cookbook

    Many people who have entered recipes in the past into a word processing program, like Microsoft Word, often of ask us for a way to import these recipes into Family Cookbook Project.

    Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to import these recipes into our system because each source uses its own layout and there is no way for us to identify what information needs to needs to be entered into our fields.

    Cut and Paste

    The good news is that it’s quick and easy to copy and paste a recipe into Family Cookbook Project using cut and paste on your computer.

    Here’s how: Simply highlight all the ingredients in your source document and hold down the Ctrl key while pressing the “C” key on your keyboard. Next go to “add a new recipe” in your family cookbook site. Click in the ingredients box and now hold the Ctrl key while pressing the “v” key. This pastes what you have copied into the field. Repeat for title, directions and notes and you are done!

    This process also can be used to import recipes from other websites. However, remember to credit the source of the recipe in your recipe notes.

    Scanning recipes

    Another way editors look to add recipes is by scanning. The problem with scanned recipes is that the system can not read the text to create titles and indexes and other parts of the cookbook. The computer just sees them as photos.

    Here is a blog post that should help answer your questions:

    http://family-cookbook-project.blogspot.com/2014/03/scanning-recipes-into-cookbook.html

    Moving recipes between cookbooks

    If want to transfer recipes from one cookbook to another, you can do so by using the Recipe Transfer Tool.  Go to Editor Tools>Publishing Tool. You will find the link at the bottom of the page since it is still in the testing (beta) phase. This tool offers step by step instructions on how to move your recipes to the new cookbook.

     

    Bill Rice is founder and Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories through customized printed cookbooks filled with treasured recipes. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!

  • 2021 Old Farmer’s Almanac Recipe Contest – Five or Fewer Ingredients

    Every year, The Old Farmer’s Almanac holds a recipe contest with cash prizes.

    This year, they are looking for great simple family recipes with five or fewer ingredients. In past years they have looked for Appetizers, Pastas, orange recipes and Dips and Spreads.

    And it’s easy to enter. Entries must be yours, original, and unpublished. You can’t be a professional chef and you can submit only one recipe per person.

    The deadline for entries is Friday, January 22, 2021.

    Cash prizes are awarded to the best recipes that fit into the category “five or fewer ingredients.” First place wins $300; second prize wins $200; third prize wins $100.

    Got a great recipe that’s made with five or fewer ingredients (not including salt and pepper) and that’s loved by family and friends? It could win!

    Learn more and enter at: https://www.almanac.com/old-farmers-almanac-recipe-contest

     

  • Remembering Loved Ones With A Family Cookbook

    The loss of a mother or grandmother is a difficult time for most people. The love and nurturing they provide is something that we will never forget is always to be cherished.

    One way to memorialize a loved one who has passed, especially someone who was responsible for cooking for the family, is to create a family cookbook in their honor.

    Often collection of recipes in the form of a recipe box, magazine and newspaper clippings, or cookbooks with pages marked is a great place to start creating a cookbook in someone’s honor.

    Another way to gather recipes is to reach out to families and friends and ask for which foods that person was known for. Getting others to share recipes and memories adds a lot to the process and to the final product.

    When entering recipes into the system, remember to write personal notes about why this recipe reminds you of the person you were honoring. It could be memories of when they’ve made that recipe or serve that recipe or just examples of food that they loved.

    Including lots of photos is also a great way to make your special cookbook a tribute to the one you love.

     

    Bill Rice is founder and Co-Publisher of the Great Family Cookbook Project, a website that helps families and individuals collect and share food memories through customized printed cookbooks filled with treasured recipes. Follow us on Facebook and Pinterest!