I'm currently an international English teacher surviving with a tiny gas oven and foreign-language supermarkets. Cookies, muffins, cheesecakes, pancakes and crepes, salads, pies. Baking multiple kinds of Christmas cookies for the holiday season; we add a new recipe or two every year. My mom also cans and freezes anything she can get her hands on. My relatives love my cheesecakes and other homemade desserts. I made a carrot cake from scratch once that I got a lot of compliments on. I once made strawberry-stuffed french toast for my parents for their anniversary. I had spent good money on out-of-season strawberries, and was cooking the syrup when I noticed it wasn't thickening. I finally took it off the stove, figuring it just wouldn't get any thicker...and then I tasted it. It was SALTY! I had used salt instead of sugar and consequently, ruined most of my strawberries. I had enough left over to make a very tiny batch of syrup, fortunately, and my parents loved the breakfast. ;-)