If you are confident that all the blank lines are really blank (no spaces or tabs), and if the organization of each recipe really has the same sequence of elements every time, you can read in "paragraph mode" (see the description of the INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR variable $/ in perlvar): 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

$/ = "";  # empty string sets "paragraph mode": reads up-to/including 
+blanks

my @parts;
my $xml_format =
    "<recipe>\n<title>%s</title>\n".
    " <abstract>\n%s\n </abstract>\n".
    " <ingredients>\n%s\n </ingredients>\n".
    " <procedure>\n%s\n </procedure>\n</recipe>\n";

print "<cookbook>\n";

while (<DATA>) {
    s/\n+$//;         # trim off trailing line-breaks
    if ( /^\s*\d/ ) {  # record begins with a number: start of new rec
+ipe
        if ( @parts ) {  # print previous recipe if there was one
            printf( $xml_format, @parts );
            @parts = ();
        }
        push @parts, $_;
    }
    elsif ( @parts == 4 ) { # we have title, abstract, ingredients and
+ some procedure
        $parts[3] .= "\n\n$_";  # so just append this paragraph to pro
+cedure
    }
    else { # this is either the abstract, ingredients or start of proc
+edure
        push @parts, $_;
    }
}
printf( $xml_format, @parts ) if ( @parts );
print "</cookbook>\n";

__DATA__
1.TITLE OF FIRST RECIPE

abstract

Ingredient 1.
Ingredient 2.
Ingredient n...

Procedure...


2.TITLE OF SECOND RECIPE

second abstract

rum
cola
ice

Just mix it all in a glass, drink it and be happy.

[download]
(updated opening sentence to make better sense; also removed an unnecessary array from the script)

In reply to Re: Regexp and reading a file n-lines at time by graff
in thread Regexp and reading a file n-lines at time by epimenidecretese

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