Back in 2006, we started the Cook'n Club and began publishing a 5-Day Meal Plan each week. The employee of mine who created the very first 5-Day Meal Plan decided to name the cookbook that contained the recipes for the 5-Day Meal Plan the "Cook'n Club Cookbook" which was a pretty good idea!

She also decided to name the chapter that contained the recipes for that week's meal plan "MP 02-18-11" (where MP stands for the words "Meal Plan") which, at the time, didn't seem like a bad idea.

And, later, someone decided to change the naming convention and to name the chapter with the words "5-Day-Meal-Plan" followed by the date of that meal plan. For example, "5-Day-Meal-Plan-2023-12-29".

As you can see in the following screenshot, the cookbook name is the "Cook'n Club Cookbook" and the chapters are named "5-Day-Meal-Plan-2023-12-29", "5-Day-Meal-Plan-2024-01-05", etc.


However, recently, I realized that there is a problem with organizing the recipes for the 5-Day Meal Plans in this way. The problem is that each chapter contains all the recipes for that week's 5-Day Meal Plan and, since some recipes (like Garlic Bread) are used frequently, the cookbook contains many duplicate recipes. For example...


As you can see, the "Garlic Bread" recipe appears dozens of times! Since this recipe is used in many of the 5-Day Meal Plans and since ALL the recipes for each meal plan are contained in their individual chapter, this is the result.

Here is another screenshot. Check out how many times the Ceasar Salad recipe is duplicated in this cookbook:


This ought not to be! This has the effect of inflating the cookbook unnecessarily and renders it difficult to use.

As I thought about it, I realized that this is really not the best way to organize the recipes in this (or any) cookbook.

We have so much history and tradition with this cookbook that I was hesitant to change it. But, alas, this flaw just had to be fixed. It doesn't make sense to have a cookbook with so many duplicate recipes! And, as time progresses, there are just going to be more and more duplicates.

So, I created a NEW cookbook and named it "Cook'n Newsletter Recipes". And, I created the following chapters:


Now, when Leslie makes a 5-Day Meal Plan, she can add new recipes AND, when it comes to side dishes, beverages, side salads, etc., she can add new recipes or choose a recipe that already exists (like Garlic Bread). That way, she won't create all these duplicates anymore.

What do you think? Do you like this change? How do you like this new cookbook?