@thoughtsthroughfood
We organize our posts by assigning Categories to them. When we publish a post it automatically appears on the running page for posts and also on the Categories pages and Archives pages. Note: There must be one published post in each Category in order for there to be anything to display.
A custom menu allows you to display Categories with drop-downs to sub-categories in tabs along the horizontal navigation where normally only Pages tabs are displayed. If you wish you can also include Pages with drop-downs to sub-pages and/or Tags pages and/or Custom Links in your custom menu as well. You are in charge of what appears in a custom menu. You choose the order in which to display any and/or all the foregoing in your custom menu. You choose which to display and which to hide.
Create a category for Recipes and assign it to the posts that have recipes in them. Create a custom menu. Add the Recipes categories to the custom menu.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-category-pages-to-your-menu
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#changing-the-order-of-menu-items-and-creating-sub-menus
Here's the link to a custom menu walkthrough
There are many common errors, misunderstanding and misconceptions when creating custom menus and you can read about them here > http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/custom-menus/