Bridgette

I love Betsy's idea of sharing about who we are as cooks so here is my rundown:

• I am also married to my best friend/love of my life and we will be married for 10 years this May!
• we have one 2.5 year old boy who is an extremely picky eater
• I do not work outside of our home, but I do have obligations outside of the home three days a week (preschool for two and bible study for one) that makes planning ahead or last minute recipes a must
  
• my husband eats leftovers for lunch 5 days a week so this plays a major role in my meal planning
  
• we also work on what I consider a fairly conservative budget for groceries
• my husband has type I diabetes so as much as I love russet potatoes I try to cook low glycemic-index foods
  
• I really agree with Betsy here: I really enjoy cooking, but don't want to spend all day, every day doing it
  
• I am relatively new to the "unprocessed food" movement but I love it's repercussions that eliminate or at least lower the amount of crazy ingredients that we eat
• I also love to shop and buy locally grown produce
  
• I got my copy of HTCE for my birthday last year (August 2009) and I cook from it at least once a week and ususally much more than that
• I have used it more than any other cookbook since it has graced my kitchen counter
• really the only other cookbook that I go to regularly is "The Complete America's Test Kitchen" for fancy recipes like pizza bianca and New York style crumb cake
  
• Betsy was the first person to tell me about this cookbook and since then I have bought two copies to give to friends

It was my idea to start this blog mainly because there are so many recipes in this cookbook and with several of my friends owning and using it I wanted a place for us to share our experiences.