• A cooking calendar with personal photos

    Design Your Own Individualised Cooking Calendar with ifolor

    Great Recipes and Photos for the Whole Year

    As an individualised gift idea for friends and family or for your own home - “feast” your eyes on an especially eye-catching cooking calendar that you can easily create yourself to accompany you throughout the year. For this idea you’ll only need 12 of your most favourite recipes, a camera, and a Photo calendar from ifolor. The Wall calendar is particularly suitable as the calendar pages offer plenty of space for your photos, ingredients lists, and cooking instructions.

    A Cooking Calendar - 12 Recipes for the Year

    It’s best to display one recipe per month accompanied by beautiful photos. Whether it’s a simple dish or a three-course menu, choose any recipe you’d like to add to your calendar.

    Tip

    Design your calendar according to seasonal availability of the ingredients. You can also find suggestions online, such as at www.saison.ch (website available in German, French, and Italian), or make use of our recipe suggestions for the year at the end of this article.

    In order to make picking out recipes easier, you could also come up with a theme for your cooking calendar. You could, for instance, collect old family recipes and bring them back to life by using your own photos. Do you prefer exotic dishes? You could create a cooking calendar that features dishes from all over the world. If you like to travel, you can also design your cooking calendar as a culinary journey through the year or collect recipes matching your favorite travel destination. If you are a fan of desserts and sweets, you can also dedicate your calendar to your favorite desserts.

    Selecting Photos for the Recipe Calendar

    Food photography is an art in itself. Mix things up a bit when photographing the dishes by taking close-up photos as well as large-scale pictures. This will give your calendar more variety and a better overall composition. Make use of the colour contrasts of the ingredients. You could also, for instance, spray the ingredients with water to make them appear extra fresh. In addition to using a photo of the finished dish as well as the ingredients You can take pictures of the ingredients in detail and record individual intermediate steps. The lovely decorated table and the whole family eating together also make great motifs for your personalised cooking calendar.

    By the way, who says that you should only photograph the dishes in the kitchen or on the dinner table? Why not take the dish outside and make use of the natural lighting? You can find additional tips and to arrange and photograph your food in our food photography guide.

    A cooking calendar displaying photos of the family while cooking

    Designing Your Personalised Cooking Calendar

    You can create your cooking calendar using any one of the photo calendars available from ifolor. Large-format wall calendars are most suitable, however, since these have more space for adding photos. Alternatively, you could go with a long and narrow kitchen calendar to save some space in the kitchen.

    You can use up to 145 photos when designing your calendar. Depending on the design template being used, you’ll need at least 1-2 photos as well as a short summary of the recipe per page; if using a font size of 12, the recipe shouldn’t be any longer than 300 characters. Alternatively, you could just name the ingredients necessary for creating the dish. And don’t forget to add the recipe name as the heading.

    Besides designing the 12 monthly pages, you’ll also need at least one photo to use for the cover. In order to give them a small taste of all the culinary delights to come over the course of the year, you could design a small collage of the pictures that you used for each individual month.

    A cooking calendar also makes a brilliant Christmas gift or to keep at home - all year round, because the starting month of your ifolor calendar can be freely selected.

    We wish you a good time and bon appétit!

    Our Recipe Ideas for the Year

    Recipes for January

    Wild game and fish are often on the menu in January. In the cold days of this month, these ingredients are often complimented with root or tuber vegetables such as black salsify and celery root. Hearty stews and casseroles are also right at home in January.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Brussels sprouts and potato casserole
    • Rutabaga stew
    • Roast venison with black salsify

    Recipes for February

    Wintery salads and wild and leafy vegetables dominate the menu in February. It’s also not uncommon to see local winter apples and pears on the plate.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Radicchio and noodle casserole
    • Apple-flavoured red cabbage with marinated beef
    • Green cabbage stew

    Recipes for March

    In the transitional month of March, the last bit of winter ingredients mix together with the first harvests of the spring. Young spinach and tasty cresses as well as fresh bear’s garlic bring some freshness to the dinner table.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Spinach gorgonzola fettuccine with salmon
    • Veal chops with lightly braised shallots
    • Red beet salad with cresses

    Recipes for April

    The first month of spring brings along with it a fresh harvest of rhubarb, spinach, herbs, and asparagus. This month sees a transition from hearty stews to lighter soups and fresh ingredients.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Spring onions with green beans and red peppers
    • Swiss chard quiche
    • Penne with rocket salad, bear’s garlic, and pesto
    Design ideas for the cooking calendar

    Recipes for May

    May is the perfect time for fish dishes, especially halibut and trout. Fresh herbs and vegetables from the market compliment the fish perfectly. Just add a crispy salad and you’re ready to dig in!

    Recipe ideas:

    • Garden sorrel soup
    • Trout with baby potatoes in dill sauce
    • Spinach with potatoes and hollandaise sauce

    Recipes for June

    The selection of fresh vegetables in June is especially large and sweet fruit and berries are a big part of the menu. Light fish dishes or tender chicken fits the bill much better in this month than hearty meals.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Cauliflower and ham casserole
    • Salmon with fresh peas and rice
    • Chicken filets with green beans and spring onions

    Recipes for July

    The fruit bowl fills to overflowing in July - sweet apricots and bright red cherries are available in droves. You should avoid eating anything too heavy in the hot weather and instead go for light salads, tasty cakes, and tender fish filets.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Apricot tart
    • Paella with fresh peas
    • Seared whitefish with sautéed kohlrabi

    Recipes for August

    The hot month of August continues to offer us a rich array of fresh fruits and vegetables. Various casseroles and crispy salads really do the trick this month.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Aubergine pasta with shaved parmesan
    • Cod filet with fennel
    • Mixed salad with strips of chicken and aromatic radish

    Recipes for September

    The summer heat starts to abate and it’s once again time to eat wild game. The first signs of autumn start to appear on the dinner table, but it’s still possible to get the trailing end of the summer harvest. This gives you a wide expanse of possibilities during September.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Mixed salad with roasted nuts
    • Zucchini au gratin with feta cheese and tomato chutney
    • Entrecôte with broccoli

    Recipes for October

    Squash is aplenty in the month of October and you can use cabbage and nuts to complement dishes on the menu. As the days get shorter and colder, warm stews and hearty roasts start to hit the spot again.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Squash cream soup with roasted strips of duck
    • Roast pork with broccoli
    • Potato dumplings with red cabbage

    Recipes for November

    In the cold month of November we start to see various kinds of cabbage and nuts bedeck the dinner table. These are complimented by venison and savoury beef.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Beef roulade with red cabbage and dumplings
    • Savoy cabbage casserole with potatoes and bacon
    • Creamy potato soup with sour cream

    Recipes for December

    The Christmas season is traditionally a time for feasting, including savoury stews, cookies, and of course the Christmas goose.

    Recipe ideas:

    • Rib eye in peanut crust
    • Stuffed cabbage with mashed potatoes
    • Brussels sprouts salad with oyster mushrooms

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