Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to my new blog! I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and with a new year beginning now seemed as good a time as any to begin.  

A little bit about me for those who don't know... I love to cook and love sharing my food with friends and family.  I get a little bit of a buzz seeing people enjoy the food I've created and put my love and energy into.  I'm probably not the most skilled cook, but I'll give most things a go and enjoy myself doing it. 

Before Christmas we were listening to the radio on the way to work, when they had TV chef and food writer Anna Gare on to talk about ideas for making it an easy but special Christmas meal. During this time she was telling the announcers her husband calls her a Foodiac because she wakes up thinking about food and is always thinking of things to do with food.  I think this label may apply to me too.  I sadly spend a lot of time thinking about what to cook and what flavours would work together. 

This preoccupation with food may partly come from the fact that my husband and I are what most would call "picky eaters".  Sometimes I think it would be easier to list what we can/will eat than what we can't/won't. Part of this pickiness on my part has come from having a parent who would either burn the dinner in the oven or boil things like vegetables within an inch of their life so that they were mushy and lifeless by the time they hit the plate.  I would like to think I haven't carried on this trait!  Eating dinner at friend's houses as a child was an adventure - food had a life to it that I didn't know at home. Unfortunately, the damage was already done and I wasn't game to try to many things for fear they'd taste horrible. It wasn't until I moved out of home and met people who knew how to really cook that I've gained the confidence to try new things.  My hat is off to you guys if you're reading this!

The other reason for the food preoccupation is because I have food intolerances to MSG (also knows as E number 621) and the similar artificial flavour enhancers, usually listed as E numbers 627, 631 and 635, which are sadly found in a great many items on the supermarket shelves.  My husband and I spend a lot of our grocery shopping time reading ingredients labels to ensure I will be ok.  It is only through trial and error we've been able to be sure I can eat certain products, and I've had to learn to be creative in the kitchen in order to make tasty meals again.  I would like to think this blog will help others like myself who have recently discovered they have similar intolerances. I know when it happened to me I went through a period of depression and despair at how I was ever going to eat and enjoy food again when so many of the things I loved had suddenly been taken away from me.  I was angry that my body was doing this to me.  (That could also have been the detox from the MSG that partly caused this moodiness - I swear, coming off the MSG was as bad as any drug addiction. Don't believe me? Watch Super-Size Me and see the dude's reaction to eating that food. That kind of euphoria during and just after eating, then swinging back to depression and feeling so ill could only be the addiction to MSG and toxic levels of it in the poor guy's system!).  If you're finding yourself in this situation, please try not to despair! I hope my tried and tested recipes will help you feel better about your new dietary needs and give you the courage to get out there and create something wonderful of your own.  :)

Now, without further ado, let's get cooking!