When I prepare a recipe from this site I always make it exactly as it is written. A fair review is based on the actual recipe itself not "I added this or I added that". After preparing and reviewing, I will tweak it to my own taste, but I do not consider doing this prior to the review. When reading reviews written by other cooks I appreciate a pure opinion based on the actual recipe. Recipes in a cook book are fair game though. I experiment and play with them to suit me. If I can squeak in extra time in the kitchen I am thrilled. My desk is always cluttered with cookbooks and recipes just waiting to be kitchen tested. My favorite past time for years has been to sit down with a good cookbook and learn something new. Lately, my goal has been to cook with a food item that I have never used before. It's amazing after all these years that the "new to me" food list could be so long. Sweets.... Hands down I love to bake. Soups would be my second choice. There is something so satisfying about combining a little of this with a little of that and coming up with one delicious bowl of food. Mashed potatoes... As odd and simple as that sounds. My dad taught me how to make them years ago. Simplicity at it's best can be such a comfort food, but add some variation to the basic recipe and the whole dish can be transformed into an elegant or rustic side dish. I recently pulled off a fundraising event that served steak dinners to 120 people. Of course I had help. The prep work and timing for that event had to be very exact to have the outcome be a delicious meal that felt home cooked. A few weeks ago I tried to scale down a cake recipe into cupcake servings and all the while turn it into a low calorie item. The cupcakes looked great coming out of the oven but before I could get them out of the pan onto the cooling racks they were sunken little rocks. I found the mistake I had made by adding a pudding mix to the batter instead of adding it to the frosting the recipe called for. Round two of the same recipe was yucky too because I tried substituting fat free whipped topping and fat free pudding to the frosting portion of the recipe. Needless to say the lack of fat in the ingredients made the frosting a soupy mess. Soooo... I layered the cupcakes and "frosting" to make a trifle type dish. It tasted okay but I learned a valuable lesson. Some recipes just aren't meant to be healthy, just yummy.