I'm in my early thirties and I have 4 little mouths to feed, plus one on the way. It's about time I mastered this cooking thing, as everyone's survival and happiness seems dependent on me. I love raising my family and am lucky to be homeschooling so we can spend lots of time together. I haven't had a ton of confidence in my cooking, but I'm determined to get over that once and for all! Someday soon I will boldly declare myself an expert. I love baking brownies from scratch, and I'm working on getting comfortable with dough. I like making comforting foods that leave you craving the leftovers. Anything that can stretch over a few days and leave you feeling stocked. I'm working on gathering those recipes and making them often enough that they become second nature. My favorite cooking traditions always occurred at my Grandma's house when we visited for Christmas. She had cookies upon cookies, stuffed us all with ham, scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, and her famous apple pie with a side of sliced cheddar. She always honored my request for a "pink cake with pink icing" for my birthday which is three days after Christmas. And she made the best Cherry Dessert ever. I've used the recipes from The Best Recipe (by the editors of Cooks Illustrated Magazine) and can create The Best Brownies, Banana Bread that is nice and crusty and rises super tall, and their bake-in-the-oven nachos are perfect. I consider my greatest triumph to be getting over my "I can't cook" hang ups. It's been quite a trial. I haven't gained that "cooking sense" yet, so the fact that I've "not gotten it" and given up so many times has been the real tragedy. I love AllRecipes.com because the recipes are tested for me, and the kinks worked out before I am confronted with it. It's those little helpful hints that are really hard to come by when you aren't raised in a kitchen.