Project Food Blog Challenge #1: The person behind Crystal's Cozy Kitchen

I love eating delicious food. I really enjoy cooking and baking delicious food for myself and others. Growing up I would read cookbooks – my husband thinks I’m a little odd because I can still read a cookbook as if it were a novel. I actually ruined quite a few pages in one of my mom’s cookbooks when I was still quite young. The combinations of food and flavors are endless and I love learning new ways to combine them! I love how creating food gives me the ability to share a part of myself with others. It is a passion that I love to share with others.

A few months after I became a stay at home mom I decided to start this blog to help those who cannot cook or rather think they cannot cook with step by step photos of what I’ve had for dinner. After a week of trying to post each dinner recipe, I decided that it wasn’t in my schedule to be able to blog each recipe – I learned my limits. Instead I decided that I would let my readers decide the recipes I would post. So each week I post my dinner menu from the previous week and hold a poll to let everyone tell me which recipe I will be posting (recipes still under testing are not included in the polls - I would be lying to say I never make a dish that is a flop – but as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”). Most of the recipes I post have step by step photos and recipe instructions – except those recipes that win the poll that I don’t have the photos for. It happens occasionally… especially when life is crazy! Life never gets crazy for any of you right?!?

Some of my favorite dinners that I’ve posted are – Chinese Dumplings, Peanut Pad Thai (mild), Pineapple Chicken Fajitas, Taco Salad, and Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops. I actually made Pad Thai before I’d eaten Pad Thai – my husband was bugging me to make it because he’d had it and loved it so much. I lucked out and found a great recipe the first time, then I adapted it and made it for our vegetarian friends which is how I ended up with a Peanut Pad Thai. I absolutely love it though – so I’m grateful that my husband kept bugging me to make it (even if it was only a few times)!

Each week in addition to my menu and the dinner recipe that won the poll, I also post kitchen tips and some random tidbit about my life, hobbies or anything else I want to discuss. My favorite item to post is my desserts – I love to make desserts which may be because I love to eat them so much. I don’t post desserts every week basically because I try not to make them every week (still trying to lose that baby fat!) Each dessert recipe has step by step photos illustrating how to make the dish. Some of my favorite desserts that I’ve posted are: Honey Truffles, Chocolate Pudding Cake and Triple Chocolate Cheesecake. Can't tell I love chocolate can you?

I should be the next Food Blog star because I am creative with food and explain recipes with pictures to help everyone understand the instructions very clearly so even the most amateur cook can confidently recreate them. I do not pretend to be the best cook, writer, photographer, or blogger, but I do write posts with instructions that are easy to follow and result in tasty meals.  My recipes come from learning in my mom’s kitchen growing up, my own experiments, and experience. As a home cook I try new types of cuisine and can inspire others to try these wonderful dishes.