The Family Cookbook Project

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  • Lowering the cost of printing your cookbook

    When it comes to printing your family cookbook, page count is the largest determining factor on what the cost per book will be.

    To lower the number of pages that need to be printed, you don’t always have to just delete recipes. Here are some simple formatting charges you can make to affect your page count.

    Go to Editor Tools>Publishing Tool>Cookbook Options and Design.  Under Recipe Layout, choose any or all of these options to save space:

    • Choose Arial or Times Roman, Two Column Small for the smallest type faces
    • UNcheck Print my recipes in non-continued format
    • UNcheck Force recipe photos to be on same page as recipe
    • CHECK Print Directions and Comments as single paragraphs
    • Under Recipe Sorting, choose Print my recipes in book order – shortest to longest

    Another thing to do is look at your recipes that are more than one page long. We show you multi page recipes in the “recipes by category” index. There is a “*” next to the edit button of long recipes. Consider removing some of these recipes by unchecking the box by the recipe title and see the impact on page count.







    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!

  • Copy-writing and proper usage of recipes

    Copy-writing and proper usage of recipes

    One issue that comes up regularly for family cookbook project editors is the topic of copy-writing recipes and proper usage. While we at the FamilyCookbookProject.com are not lawyers and do not give legal advice, our research shows that recipes cannot generally be copyrighted. 

    At the same time, it does not make it right to simply take credit for other people’s work. One way to avoid this is to give credit where credit is due. If your contributor submits a recipe that they originally found in a magazine or cookbook, it is appropriate to list the source in the notes section of the recipe.

    A few articles of interest in this topic

    Copyright Office flyer on recipes
    http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.pdf

    Copyrighting Recipes
    http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-realworld/recipe-copyrighting.html

    Questions & Answers – Copyrighting Recipes
    http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/CookbookAdvice.htm

    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!

  • Freezing Cookie Dough


    The best cookie recipes can be frozen and used as needed

    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 October 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 atleast 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!

  • Holiday Recipe Book and Cookbook Printing

    Holiday Recipe Book and Cookbook Printing

    Happy November 2nd!
    (well, it’s a not a holiday, but have fun anyway!)

    As we prepare for the holiday season, many family cookbook editors are working to finalize their projects in order to give as gifts this year. Cookbooks must be submitted for printing by Saturday, November 30th to guarantee delivery without expedited shipping before the Christmas holiday.

    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 of November 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.

    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.

    Get Our iPhone or Android App
    Announcing our new App for iPhone and Android! You don’t always have to have a printed cookbook to use your recipes – you can always access them from the web on any PC, Mac or iPad with a nice larger screen. But what about your phone? Well, now we have an app for that! Here are links to get the one for your phone:
    iPhone App here    Android App here

    Check out our Cookbook Accessories Shop
    Need a great extra to go along with your cookbooks – like a nice cookbook stand? Check out our Accessories Shop powered by Amazon!


  • Family Cookbook Project Now On Pinterest!

    Family Cookbook Project Now On Pinterest!

    For some time we at the Family Cookbook Project have been seeing a lot of our recipes shared on the social media site Pinterest. So we’ve chosen to create become a business member and to post our favorite recipes to boards.

    All of our public recipe pages have a Pin button to make it easy to share recipes on Pinterest.

    We have also started three Pinterest boards that you can follow with more to come:

    Family Cookbook Project

    Here are some fabulous recipes and food ideas from the from the more than 125,000 contributors using Family Cookbook Project.

    Foods from Around the World

    Here are recipes submitted to www.FamilyCookbookProject.com that have an international flair. 

    Things to do with Thanksgiving Turkey

    Here are some interesting family recipes from the cookbooks found at www.FamilyCookbookProject.com that use turkey as a main ingredient. 
    Please follow us on Pinterest and tell your fields about it too!
  • Family Cookbook Project Wins Best Publishing WebAward From The Web Marketing Association

    Family Cookbook Project Wins Best Publishing WebAward From The Web Marketing Association


    The Family Cookbook Project (www.familycookbookproject.com) has been named the Best Publishing Website in the Web Marketing Association’s 17th 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 2003 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 41,000 families and groups have started family cookbooks using the website and contributors have entered more than 796,000 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.
  • Summer Cooking – Hot and Delicious!

    Summer Cooking – Hot and Delicious!

    We hope you’re doing well, cooking yummy things and keeping cool.

    It’s August 2013. It’s hot! But fall and the holidays are going to come quicker than you think. You still have plenty of time to get your cookbook ready for Thanksgiving get-togethers. Just remember, it will take us 2-3 weeks to print and get your cookbooks to you. So plan to finish up by the first few days of November. That’s just 13 weeks away.

    Right now is the perfect time to get everyone involved – and print your book for the holidays!

    Great Cookbook Accessories!
    Need a nice cookbook holder for the kitchen? How about a really nice 3-ring binder for when you print on your own? Check out our Cookbook Accessories Shop and see all the fun things we have!

    -Chip Lowell and Bill Rice
    Family Cookbook Co-Publishers

    Featured recipe from the database

    The Great Family Cookbook Project has surpassed 500,000 public recipes in the system thanks to you! If you need a fun recipe idea that’s not in your own cookbook, go to our home page and use the search function to see what’s available – lots of good eats!

    Here is a recipe we tried recently for a fun summer party:

    This recipe for Party Punch, by Shannon Gilliland, is from The Nash Family Cookbook. Search for more great recipes here from over 350,000 in our family cookbooks!

    Party Punch Recipe

    Contributor:    Shannon Gilliland

    ________________________________________
    Category:

    Appetizers & Beverages
    ________________________________________

    Ingredients:

    3 Cups Orange Juice
    2 Cups Pineapple Juice
    2 Cups Sugar
    1 Quart Lemonade
    1 Quart Water
    1 Quart Ginger Ale
    ________________________________________

    Directions:

    Mix all ingredients together and cool.
    ________________________________________

    Number Of Servings:    24

    Have a great end to Summer!

    Chip Lowell 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!

  • Family Reunion Activity Planning Time

    Family Reunion Activity Planning Time

    It’s 2013 Family Reunion and Summer party time!

    If your family has an annual family reunion in the summer, now is the time to get people contributing to your family cookbook. A cookbook is a great way to get family members excited about getting together – and what family reunion doesn’t feature mountains of mouth watering food and family recipes!

    Just a note: make sure to allow 2-3 weeks for printing and delivery. If you have a tight time crunch, let us know and we’ll see what we can do to help!

    Featured recipe from the database

    The Great Family Cookbook Project has surpassed 400,000 public recipes in the system thanks to you! If you need a fun recipe idea that’s not in your own cookbook, go to our home page and use the recipe search function to see what’s available – lots of good eats!

    Here is a recipe we tried recently for a fun appetizer:

    Sizzlin’ Party Mix Recipe

    Contributor: Shelley Cummins

    Category: Appetizers & Beverages

    Ingredients:

    Wheat Chex Cereal
    Corn Chex Cereal
    Butter
    Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (any variety)
    Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Pretzels (or other pretzels)
    Cajun Spices (any brand) or Spicy Seasoning Salt
    Worcestershire Sauce
    Peanuts
    Cashews (optional), etc.

    Directions:

    Preheat oven to 350º

    In large, deep oven roaster, melt 1 stick of butter (the butter will melt quickly).

    Once the butter is melted, add several tablespoons of Worcestershire and several tablespoons of Cajun or Spicy Seasoning Salt right into the melted butter.

    Stir butter mixture to combine seasonings and Worcestershire.

    Add in about 1/2 box of each type of cereal.

    Add pretzels, goldfish and peanuts/cashews.

    Stir to coat evenly.

    Cook in oven for about :30 minutes, but continue to stir mixture every few minutes so that the coating is evenly distributed.

    When coating is very dry on all of the cereal and other ingredients, take out of the oven (about :30 minutes). Line containers with a paper towel, then store party mix in containers or Holiday tins.

    Editors Ideas – how to keep your contributors motivated

    Remember – summer reunions are coming before we know it. When you do get together in the coming months, bring a printed recipe or two from your cookbook and hand them out. Let folks know that you plan to print the book in June or July – and get all their email addresses so you can add them to your book. Have fun!

  • Make Some Green with Your Cookbook – Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

    Make Some Green with Your Cookbook – Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

    If you are creating a fundraising cookbook at CookbookFundraiser.com, you already know that cookbooks can make your favorite cause some green!  But, you can also have your family cookbook sold on Amazon.com and profit from sharing all of your favorite recipes! All it takes is an ISBN number and bar code added before printing and you can get it listed on Amazon. You set up an account and sell directly to your customers. Simply add our Sellers Package for only $137 when you place your printing order.  You can also use our free ecommerce site at OurCookbooks.com to list your book and sell your cookbook, too.  Make money for yourself – or even help a charity or friend in need.

    “Received the Callahan Family Cookbook today! It looks wonderful! I am so pleased with the results! Can’t wait to share it with the family! You were just wonderful to work with and I am so appreciative of all the help you provided in this project! I will be recommending you to all of my friends as they have been waiting for the results! Top notch operation!”
    –Sandi Hoffman, The Callahan Family Cookbook

    “We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.”–Alfred E. Newman

    “When I go to a restaurant, I always ask for a chicken and an egg, to see which comes first.”
    –Unknown

    St. Patrick’s Day is coming March 17th.  Is there a Pot o’ Yummy Cookbooks at the end of your rainbow?  Check out the upcoming dates to ensure delivery!


    Mother’s Day is coming quickly – May 12th – and it also is one of the best times to have your family cookbook published. Family cookbooks make a great Mother’s Day gift both for the mothers in our lives and even from a mother to her children.

    Wedding season is coming, too!  How about a family & friends cookbook for a shower or bridal party gift?

    Summer and family reunion time is just 3 short months from now. Remember, it may take a full 3 weeks to get your cookbooks at that time of year – so start today! Let folks know that you plan to print the book in the Summer – and get all their email addresses so you can add them to your book. Have fun!

    Featured recipe from the database                                                     

    The Great Family Cookbook Project has a huge amount of public recipes in the system thanks to you!  If you need a fun recipe idea that’s not in your own cookbook, go to our home page and use the search function to see what’s available – lots of good eats!

    Here is a recipe we tried recently:

    Corned Beef Sandwiches with Mustard Dressing
    This recipe for Corned Beef Sandwiches with Mustard Dressing, by Edna Owen, is from Edna’s Clippings, one of the cookbooks created at FamilyCookbookProject.com.

    Search for more great recipes here from over 400,000 in our family cookbooks!

    Ingredients:

    8 large slices rye bread
    Prepared mustard
    hinly sliced cooked corn beef
    Thin slices cheddar cheese
    Mustard dressing
    Pimiento strips (optional)

    Directions:

    Spread bread with mustard, then cover with corned beef and overlapping cheese slices. Spread with dressing to within 1/2″ of edges. Put under broiler until dressing is bubbly and cheese is melted. Garnish with pimiento strips, if desired.

    Mustard Dressing
    Mix thoroughly 1 c mayonnaise, 3 tbsp prepared mustard, 1 tbsp prepared horseradish, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 c well-drained pickle relish and a dash of hot pepper sauce.

    Enjoy! 

    Whether your creating a cookbook with our cookbook software at FamilyCookbookProject.com or a fund raising project at CookbookFundraiser.com we make it easy and fun!

  • Organize Your Recipes Video

    We just finished up a new video describing our recipe organizing and cookbook creation software at Family Cookbook Project.  Take a look – let us know what you think!  (Plus you can see Chip and Bill from a few years ago…)

    Thanks!