I'm a self-taught home cook who enjoys trying out new recipes. My favourite recipes are lower-fat, healthier versions of traditional recipes. My husband is Type II diabetic, so I'm always looking for ways to make recipes healthier (particularly lower in sugar) for our family. I'm a former octo-lovo vegetarian who still enjoys vegetarian dishes. I love cooking Italian and crock-pot dishes, and often adapt traditional recipes to a quicker, weeknight or crock-pot version. I the quick and healthy benefits of pasta dishes. I am an adventurous eater who will try anything once, although I have a fear of cooking tofu or Indian dishes myself. Our traditional family Christmas dinner is held on Christmas Eve and features: rhubarb-jello salad, Irish-style sausage stuffing, home-made dark Christmas Cake with hard sauce, and (of course) Turkey with all the trimmings. Learning to make my own home-made pizza Making chicken stew with dumplings from scratch -- they turned out very well the first time My world-famous banana chocolate chip muffins I'm well know for my chicken cacciatore, made in a crock pot so it can simmer all day This Thanksgiving I made a pumpkin pie with silken tofu and spelenda so that it could be lactose-free, sugar-free, and egg-free to satisfy several diatary needs in my family. Only my husband knows that it was made with tofu! I'm still an absoloute novice with pastry. For some reason it always turns out fragile and oily for me. I've had very little luck cooking main dishes featuring tofu, unless it's with the pre-processed tofu products such as yves veggie ground beef. I'd like to become better at this.