Diane’s Kitchen

Diane’s cookbook & recipe collection

Note: books containing recipes and related information are most often referred to as cookbooks or recipe books. For the most part, I have used cookbook as a generic descriptor of all these books.

I was traveling and moving around quite a bit in the 1970’s so most of the cookbooks I collected during that period were paperback or o ther small easily portable books. An example is my paperback edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Other books came with various products I purchased. These include Loafing It, Cutco Cookbook, Kitchen Aid Cookbook and several others. One of the first big full size cookbooks I got was in the 1980’s – The Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking.

During the 1990’s I obtained several cookbooks from attending meetings and conferences for volunteer directors. These include Celebrating the Centennial, First there must be Food, Healthy Habits Cookbook, What's Cookin' from ASDVS membership, World of Cooking, The Well-Seasoned Wok

Other cookbooks were given to me by family and friends. These include Betty Betz Teenage Cookbook, Bowlers Favorite Recipes, the Deaf Smith Country Cookbook, Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook, For the Pot, Recipes from Brandywine River Museum, Harvest Recipes, Mendocino County Treats & Trees and the Thursday Night Feast.

Since about 2015 many of my recipes come from the internet. I discovered this was a great way to look for recipes containing a specific ingredient. I copied recipes that interested me into word processing documents. I have built up quite a collection over the years. These documents come in handy not only for the recipes themselves, it is also a way for me to mark the recipes I have used and make any notes pertaining to that recipe.

I n more recent years I have expanded on a project started back in the mid 2000’s. That is scanning portions of certain cookbooks in the family collection. I created a spreadsheet listing t he recipes I was interested in trying along with the book they were in, the page number and key ingredients. I have marked the ones I have tried. I found it is easier to scan recipes I have made or intend to make as my filing system makes a digital copy easier to find than going through the book even using my spreadsheet as a reference. In addition all my digital recipes, whether they are part of the family recipe book, recipes I have collected from the internet, scanned from the family collection of books, or other sources provides for a lot of flexibility and enhances the ability to use them. For instance, I can access them on the computer and on my tablet. I can take the whole collection or just pertinent parts with me when we go camping.

Note: I have always been a fan of Winnie the Pooh. This book has some great recipes.

* Cookbooks – sorted by title -|- * Cookbooks sorted by Type -|- List of Recipes that I have made

I have chosen to list all of the cookbooks in the family archives instead of just mine. As of March 2025 there are 453 cookbooks, booklets and pamphlets listed in my cookbook spreadsheet. Looking t hrough the above documents I realize there are at least a few more I need to add.



Recipe Collections

I ended up with the recipe boxes from both my grandmothers as well as from my mother. The collections also include recipes from various other family members. Click here to view the collections of Josephine Harrison -|- Myrtle Leipper -|- Virginia Leipper -|- Virginia’s Christmas Planning - Diane Leipper. Included on the page is a link to a photo gallery of dishes I have made from the various collections.







Back to main page -|- Diane’s kitchen hobby -|- tools and equipment