Kitchen Alchemy.

As anyone in our family will tell you, I LOVE to cook. Seriously... capital L, O, V, E. I hunt recipes like I am on safari. It is no joke when I say that I have a huge kitchen cabinet completely devoted to cookbooks and the shelves are actually bowing in the middle because of the weight. I cut recipes out of magazines, copy them from food containers, search tirelessly on the Internet. I love finding new recipes. What I have realized lately is that although I love recipes, I really wanted to start making up my own. (But, I was scared because I don't really trust that I know what I am doing without the safety of a recipe.)

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to cook more on the fly. Looking at what we have in the pantry and making things around that. So far it has been going okay. Two highlights have been the grilled chicken with homemade pesto (the basil was from our GARDEN) served with spinach ricotta ravioli and last night I made up a recipe for black raspberry tart. We have a ton of raspberries growing wild behind the house so I put them on a sugar cookie crust with a light drizzle of glaze. It was pretty good.

Now I just need to learn how to photograph food because these pictures aren't so appetizing...