It has taken me quite a while to learn to cook. I found that the secret to cooking is to learn what each ingredient can do individually. Once you have that down, it is much easier to create successful new recipes. This is great for me because I live alone, so I have to eat all of what I make- even if it takes a week! I LOVE to cook family-style meals. Since I live alone, I make 2 full family style meals a week then break them up into individual "TV Dinners" that I can take to work or reheat at night. It is too easy to get roped into overly-processed frozen meals- this way I know what I am eating at all times. We were having a fundraiser over St. Patrick's Day weekend, so I made a red velvet cake from an old family recipe and used green food coloring instead. I only used 1oz of green food coloring and the recipe called for 2oz. Needless to say, it was more than enough and we all thought there was something wrong with us the next day when everything was green... The cake was amazing though!