My family is Cuban/Spanish and I hail from a long line of cooking aficionados. Every family event is highlighted with exquisite home-made food, growing up I always wanted to learn and be "the helper" (aka sous chef!). I have always cooked for my family and friends, now as a newlywed I enjoy cooking for my husband and making yummy yet healthy meals. Cooking is definitely a passion of mine! I have been referrring to this site for a long time and I am glad to be part of the community now! :) I love to learn, so I am always lookng at recipes in magazines or on-line. I really enjoy the excitement of making a recipe for the first time. I really like cooking traditional Cuban food and giving it a healthy twist, which can be done! I also like making gourmet salads - it doesn't get any easier or healthier! *"Sofrito" is the base for most Cuban recipes. *Spanish Arroz con Pollo a la Chorera - Spanish style yellow rice, with chicken, saffron, pimentos, green peas, onions, garlic. After the rice is almost cooked, add your favorite beer until rice is almost swimmng in the beer/tomoto sauce. It's DELCIOUS! *Caramel Flan - The easiest dessert to make! If you have a pressure cooker - 20 minutes it's done! *Yuca Con Mojo - Boiled casava with lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic! *Picadillo - This ground beef classic is delicious, I make it with ground turkey and instead of white rice, I serve it with brown rice. It's delicious and nutritious! ;) There is nothing better than crowd-pleasing recipes! It makes the hard work and time worthwhile! My husband's favorite is lobster ravioli with my home-made fetuccini alfredo / pesto sauce. I would consider this a triumph - I have never seen him eat so much! He woke up the next day thinking about it and still talks about it! My husband and I got back from vacation and we had no groceries in the house... I decided to make whole wheat pasta and made the sauce from scratch. The sauce and pasta would've been perfect but I added canned chicken breast. Yuck! The texture of the sauce and cooked chicken had a "funny" taste. My husband ate it, so did I - but it was just a wierd concoction. In the future, I'll leave canned meats for cold, mayo based salads only!