I'm a busy mother of two boys. As a wife, mother and also working full time I still find time to cook dinner almost every night. It takes planning, but I think sitting down at the dinner with your family is VERY important. Healthy meals are always on my list!!! Don't get me wrong...chicken nuggets and french fries make the list every now and then, but I like to recreate those type of meals to make them a bit healthier rather than opening a bag and dumping them onto a cookie sheet. :-) I like to cook what I LOVE to eat. Almost every Sunday I make a huge pot of soup. I freeze half for a later meal and the other half I use for lunches throughout the week. I love the flavors of Asian cusine. I make a lot of stir-fry. I LOVE fresh ginger. I like home-made pizza and I like to come up with fun ways to jazz up good ole' chicken. I also love salmon!!! I am not much of a baker, I am more meat and potatoes. However, these days it's more meat and veggies. I utilize the crockpot probably at least once a week. It makes clean-up easy and I can use less expensive cuts of meat and they turn out succulent. Staying within my food budget is very important. It's unfortunate that healthy eating is more expensive, but you CAN have both. There is not really any cooking traditions in my family. My Grandpa Ray is an outstanding cook so the tradition is usually pigging out for our birthday meal and for sure Thanksgiving!!! Again, I'm not much of a baker. But...I can make a mean pizza dough. Several years ago I kept trying and trying to re-create my favorite soup at famous Italian restaurant chain...the Zuppa Toscana!!! I finally after many attempts created a soup that is just as good or better than at the restaurant. I've adapted my original recipe with lower fat/calories/carb ingredients and the taste is AWESOME! I love recreating dishes from restaurants although sometimes it takes a while. Nothing recent that I can think of...although I always seem to burn microwave popcorn. I'll be standing there listening and it never fails something distracts me. :-)