I'm the middle of five children and didn't cook much growing up, except for baking desserts for my family of sweet tooths! After I got married, my cooking was based a lot on my Mom's recipes. Now I try new recipes all the time thanks to my subscription to Taste of Home magazine and this website! I have three beautiful children, a 4 year old son and daughters ages 2 and 6 months. Cooking to please picky kids is a constant challenge! Other than cooking, I also like to read, hike, play games, and most of all, just spend time with family. I love making desserts, especially cheesecakes! My favorites are the white chocolate raspberry and the chocolate turtle cheesecakes from this website. I also love making just about anything with cheese! I don't cook with fancy ingredients or take the time to create elaborate gourmet food, but what I do make almost always gets lots of compliments. I was blessed with Grandparents that were excellent Southern cooks. Some of my favorite memories are of their home-canned vegetables and strawberry rhubarb cobbler with homemade vanilla ice-cream. I have carried on my Grandma's tradition of making the Christmas candies like peanut brittle and fudge....but every year I like to try new candies also. I pulled off a fabulous Valentine's Dinner for a group of 8 adults....with parmesan breadsticks, puff pastry chicken bundles, cheesy mashed potatoes, sugar snap peas with mint, and an array of desserts including white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, hint of berry bon bons, chocolate caramels, chocolate covered strawberries,homemade chocolate covered cherries, and heart-shaped sugar cookies decorated with white and dark chocolate. It was so much work, but it was lovely and everyone was so impressed that they talked about it for an entire year. I was making a cheesecake for a dinner party we were invited to the following evening and I somehow forgot to check it and it was seriously overbaked. This was at about 9:00 p.m. I dissolved into tears and was completely despondent about taking a flop dessert to a party. My dear husband ran out to the store and got me new ingredients for another cheesecake and stayed up late with me to finish it.