I cook because I love to eat and also to make my hubby happy. My greatest cooking influence is without a doubt my mother-in-law -- she inspires me to try new things and make a recipe my own. I love slow cooker and one-pot meals. I also love to bake, especially yeast breads because I find kneading (and the smell!) therapeutic. Baking LOTS of Christmas cookies to give away. Thai food. We love Thai curry and beef salad. Over ten years ago, I tried many times to get the curry flavor right, but finally Cooking Light published an article and recipe. I was missing Fish Sauce and brown sugar. This was before all the Thai canned, packaged, and jars started appearing on grocery shelves. Once I used the fish sauce and brown sugar it was perfect! (Even though it smelled like feet at first!) The beef salad was a similar path to success - trying several things before finding a good Cooking Light recipe for it. And I combined it with a fantastic marinade for beef from Allrecipes: California Thai Flank Steak. There's been a couple of times when I've obviously forgotten an ingredient in a recipe. Or when I'm doubling a recipe and forget to double one of the ingredients (like sugar - that dessert was icky). The worst was when I added WAY too much pepper to pan-seared pepper scallops - my husband and I still laugh about that.