I am terrible in my tendency to make one dish meals, such as casseroles and stir fry. I am actively trying to branch out but get intimidated by the synchronization needed in order to have several dishes completed at once. I guess I am afraid to have cold potatoes next to steaming steaks:/ My family tends to cook extremely heavy meals, mostly Italian style. I tend to struggle with my weight and my father died of heart failure so I have nixed most family recipes and focus on eating light (but tasty!) meals. I love to make birthday cakes for friends and family. I made a sunflower cake for my mother, a stadium cake for my sport loving fiance, a monkey cake for my best friend, and a purse cake for my pocketbook fiend-ing sister. Recently though I created pretty complex dragon cake for my fiance's best friend that came out wonderfully:) I was very proud. Thankfully, I have had very few cooking failures. I have burned bread, due to excessive glaze (lesson learned), and cooked only one dish that didn't warrant praise, a weight watchers polenta recipe that was very bland. I'm actually shocked that there haven't been more disasters. I had wanted to learn to cook for many years but was always intimidated. I think people build the art of cooking up in their minds, when following a recipe is actually very easy. Take away that net, however, and I doubt I'd be so confident.