I have been married for 20 years and began cooking when I was in high school. My mother taught me how to cook the basics and my mother-in-law taught me how to throw together a meal without a recipe. I LOVE allrecipes.com for those days when I just can't think of what to cook for my dear husband and 3 boys. I usually take several recipes and warp them together to create something new. My family history goes back generations of great cooks and gardeners. I love cooking comfort foods from fresh ingredients (from my own garden is even better). I have a few recipes that I have adapted to meet our family's tastes and they get rave reviews everytime I make them. I make a great sweet potato casserole and super baked "Miss Molly" potatoes (named after a friend of ours who gave us the basic recipe) Because I love to "create" my own recipes we have on occasion had to feed the trash can and order a pizza. I can't tell you exactly how many or what those meals were but they were true tragedies in the kitchen. My family says my cooking tragedy is that I always seem to catch the toaster oven on fire (at least once a year).