The only three things sort of doing that are found when opening your inventory:

1) your skills tab;
2) your trophy's tab;
3) the lore book.

And neither on those tells you about the new recipes you get after they unlock.

Which leaves you to do three things:

1) check the workbench / forge and cauldron everytime you end up with picking up new items;
2) check your building menu every time you have found or crafted (metals!) new items.

3) What I do is having the wiki open at a laptop - although 2nd screen would work too - at all times. When knowing I could create something, but not knowing how or where, I may check over there to figure out what I was missing. Especially since not everything is obvious; like the metal spring at an Artisan table instead of the forge?

Thorin