These days I'm a quick fix cook, leaning heavily on the 'instant homemade' idea: canned soup, ground beef, instant potatoes & frozen veggies = shephard's pie. I use recipes to spur creativity more than I actually follow them. Whatever smells good in my mind. My favourite spices are cumin and curry. And I love 'sweet heat': curried marmalade tuna, ginger pear jam, sweet thai chili sauce. Not a tradition in the sense of happening at holiday time, but my family gets excited whenever I make 'Hidden Treasure Salad'. It is different every time so the ingredients are the hidden treasures to discover. Basic must haves: greens on a bed of cold Mr. Noodles, something crunchy, something sweet & some protein source. Plus a good salad dressing. I make it on the dinner plates, so they also like that I customize to their preferences. At 30, I finally got over my fear of crock pots. Now I'm not afraid to dump almost anything in it.. but no chicken skin! My husband recenly brought home a bag full of snow peas. Too many to eat raw, they were fading fast. So I decided to blend them and make soup. Mint, buttermilk, sugar... nothing could make that soup edible.