Your kitchen or mine?

Ahhhh, I love baking pumpkin pie. Of all things I bake, that's the only thing that always turns out just the way it's suppose to be. I figured out that after years of cooking and baking ... I better leave the baking to my kid! Now she's a fantastic baker and the reason why is that she follows the recipe exactly. Now me, I like to substitute ingredients or toss in a little extra of this or that. I'm sure all you bakers out there are going ... oh noooo, you can't do that ... which is correct. Well you can, but most of the time your cookies or cakes won't turn out right. See, I'm an artist someone who enjoys experimenting with things, just like following an exact pattern for something to knit or crochet ... my hands just refuse to follow the rules that are written down and I end up making my own rules. Now with my arts and crafts I end up with a great result (well most of the time) but in baking that usually turns out to be a disaster so I stick to cooking, tossing in a little of this and a little of that, which the recipe doesn't call for is ok when you're making stew, or quiche or pasta dishes and I definitely leave baking to my daughter. She makes cupcakes that are to die for, and she makes them from scratch not from a box. She dreams of having her own cupcakery business some day and I must say I think she will definitely succeed!

So, talking about cooking and baking and making pumpkin pie last night made me think of putting together a treasury with kitchen items so voila ... enjoy! While I'm gonna have a piece of pumpkin pie.