Donate your recipes

Thank you for sharing a recipe with your fellow Simple Savers! In doing so you are helping hundreds of families in their mission to serve up delicious, healthy meals that don’t break the bank. To make your recipe as easy as possible for others to follow, here are some tips and guidelines for filling in the ‘Donate your recipes’ online form, as well as a sample completed form.

Please respect the copyright and ownership of others. This means no word for word copying of any recipe that has been published elsewhere.

If your recipe originally came from a book, but you have tinkered with the ingredients and re-written how to make it in your own words, that’s fine. If you can remember the original source, it would be courteous to credit them as the inspiration for your dish.

Try to give your dish a name that describes what it is and sounds yummy. If your recipe includes something not normally found in that dish, say so in the title, for example ‘Leftover lentil and vegie lasagne’. This will help other members scanning recipe titles for ideas.

These fields are self explanatory. How long does your recipe take to prepare and cook, how many people does it serve and roughly how much does it cost to make?

Please use only numbers here. This allows the computer to make sense of this information so we can do detailed searches (coming soon!).

This is your chance to expand on the title and tell us why your recipe is so good or special to you! Perhaps it’s been handed down through generations, or your kids love to make it with you? Include how and why the recipe helps you save money.

Try to list the ingredients in the order they are used to make your dish. Remember to include every single ingredient, even if it’s something most people have in their pantry, e.g. a pinch of salt or a tablespoon of olive oil. If possible, stick to one system of measurement throughout the recipe. If your cake calls for two cups of flour, give the amount of sugar, coconut etc. in cups too.

List all the items needed to make the recipe, including things like greaseproof paper or paper towel to drain vegies on. Indicate whether saucepans should be small, medium, large, deep or shallow and whether they should have a lid. If there is a substitute for any specialist equipment your recipe calls for, like a sushi mat, please tell us what it is.

You are obviously a dab hand in the kitchen if you've created a recipe or adjusted one to make it yummier, but that doesn’t go for everyone! For this reason, please describe how to make your dish in as much detail as possible. Instead of saying ‘brown the mince’ give specific instructions for how to do this. Something like ‘Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. When the oil is sizzling add the mince and stir constantly, breaking it up until it is brown all over’.

In this field, don’t forget to include any tricks you have developed for saving time or washing up, avoiding under or over-cooking or generally making your recipe easier to cook.

This field is for any other useful information you wish to add and anything you have learned from experience cooking this dish. This covers what to do if you wish to increase or reduce serves, whether the recipe can freeze, and tips for defrosting or reheating. Here’s the place to add a photo of you or your dish (or both!) if you wish.

Thanks again for your entry. Good luck in our monthly competition!