I graduated from Culinary Arts College in 2004 and went on to work as a head baker under an amazing professional pastry chef. Baking is my passion and expertise, with a special emphasis on desserts, breads, deli type salads and soups. I just graduated with my degree in Accounting and my husband and I moved to Maryland. I now have the new challenge of learning how to cook very quickly after getting home from work ~ but my husband and I get to sit down to dinner together every night now, which I love. I spend much less time cooking than I used to but I always spend some of my lunch hour reading new recipes or looking at the Allrecipes pictures and the way I "reward" myself or reduce stress is baking. I absolutely love desserts. Trying out new recipes is really fun for me, especially for birthdays. My expertise is cheesecake, but my favorite to eat are pies! After my husband and I joined Weight Watchers, it has really transitioned how I cook. However, I really enjoy the challenge of making recipes healthier so that we feel really good after everything we eat. My staples include variations of rice and chicken, especially Thai, and I try to never repeat dinner recipes. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving are very set in stone for the menu. My favorite is my Grandma's ham and raisen sauce on Easter. I catered a formal 6 course dinner for 20 people for my mom. That was probably my biggest accomplishment, as I had to time everything and garnish to dress up the meal. We had a cocktail hour of fine cheeses, breads, and wines. First course was a salad (dried cherries, feta, candied pecans, pears, and mixed greans) then butternut squash soup, followed by a pallate cleanser of lemon sorbet. The main course was peppered roast pork with a white wine mustard sauce, green beans, and a cranberry pecan rice pilaf. Dessert was a pumpkin pecan cheesecake with a warm caramel sauce and vanilla whipped cream. It went fabulously and was a blast! The first time I cooked for my husband's family, I had them all over to my parent's house. This totaled around 20 people so I decided to cook chili and cinnamon rolls, since that was one of my specialties at school. I forgot to cook the beans before I dumped them in the chili and dinner was postponed almost 3 hours! All the kids were crying and hungry and I was so embarrassed! We finally just served it and it is now fondly referred to as the "Crunchy Chili" dinner.