I am a work at home mom of 2 active toddlers. I love to try new recipes and often try so many new recipes that I forget about all the great ones I've already made. My focus in cooking is to cook healthy and lower in fat without compromising the taste of the food. My husband thinks I'm excellent in this area and often tells others that if it weren't for my cooking, he'd be one large guy! I rarely actually measure ingredients but have gotten good at eyeballing them to my family's preferences and haven't been disappointed yet. My favorite things to cook are pasta dishes, fresh veggies, seafood and chicken dishes. I'm really focused on Italian recipes and also dabble quite a bit in Mexican recipes. This site has opened up a world of great ways to make fresh veggies and got our family out of the "veggie rut". My kids now look forward to many of the fresh veggies I make, which wasn't the case before using this site. My favorite family cooking traditions are actually ones that my husband and I created. I LOVE company while I cook. When he and I were newly married we'd often open a bottle of wine and cook together. It was one of my favorite times per day. Now that we have two little ones and more intervention is needed to keep them out of the kitchen while I try to get dinner on the table, my cooking time is often alone. While I still thoroughly enjoy cooking...it's not as fun as when there's someone there to keep me company (and help!) while I cook. My greatest cooking triumph just occurred yesterday when I made my first attempt at making two different type of shellfish. I made oysters rockefeller for an appetizer and then made clams and garlic over pasta for my 8th wedding anniversary. To understand why this is a triumph, you'd have to know me. I HATE touching slimy things or dealing with fresh fish. I'm not even that crazy about cutting up raw chicken breasts (yet I do it almost daily). I guess it's my priss factor and dealing with oysters and clams was certainly not in my top million things to do. Both dishes turned out super and I was very proud since it was about as far outside of my comfort zone in cooking as I could possibly go. Also...my overall cooking triumph is that I'm a self taught cook and have become very skilled at it. When I met my husband, I didn't cook at all. I started researching recipe books and websites and eventually got to where I am today. It's now one of my most favorite things to do! Hands down....eggs and baking. I make horrible eggs for breakfast and while I can usually follow a recipe in the baking department, I'll never be great at it. I don't love sweets so maybe I'm lacking motivation but I'm notorious for burning baked goods or finding a way to cook them where I can't even get them out of the pan! I'll stick to the basics from here on out in baking. And eggs? I'll be leaving the cooking of that to my husband.