Cooking My Heart Out

Guest Post by Shelly Garcia

I love to cook. Something about cutting all of the vegetables, meats, and cheeses just soothes my soul. I love to get in the kitchen after a very stressful day at work. My mind just seems to wander off. I get lost in the mounds of onions, garlic, and tomatoes. I get in my zone and I can actually say, I don't think about anything but the food. I don't think about how my day was, or what's on TV or what my husband is doing. I just focus on my food and my knife. Sounds weird, I know. It's like

> therapy for me. I will tell you though, I am not much of a baker. I can cook anything you want me to. From Italian to Chinese to Polish; ANYTHING. Now, when it comes to baking, that's a different story. I have  to go strictly by the recipe. I have to measure precisely. I get very  anxious and nervous when I'm baking, always scared something is not going to turn out right. I have recently started to venture out and bake stuff from scratch.  I've made a chocolate chess pie. Can I tell you? IT WAS AWESOME. I will definitely pat myself on the back for that one. The next thing I tried to make, was a flan. Very difficult. You have to have a lot of patience with that one. You have to melt butter and sugar in a pot until it's liquefied. You pour that very hot mixture around the edges of a small baking dish. I guess it's so the actual flan will not stick to the pan. It was one of the most difficult recipes I have ever tried. It didn't turn out the way I wanted, but you live and learn. I don't think I will ever try make it again. I was getting really stressed out about it, then I was upset because it didn't turn out the way I was expecting. What I am excited about baking is a cheesecake. From scratch. Hopefully that will turn out a lot better than the flan.