December has escaped me… well and truly.  It has disappeared in a whirlwind of work and festive goodness.  But it has been good, and fun and worth it, even now as I sit here and type with heavy eyes, a full stomach and with one Christmas dinner to go.  I have also learnt some things this December and impressed myself a little in the process.

This December has been a month of cooking so I thought I would take a moment to brag a little because I really am quite proud of myself.  I think one of the reasons I am so proud is while I am not a bad cook, I am not a confident cook.   Cooking and baking take me a long time, I am meticulous with recipes and even then things don’t always turn out all that well… in fact you can read about some of my past kitchen adventures here… anyway, this year as part of my list I added a couple of cooking challenges and throughout the year I have been able to cross a few off the list…

2.  Make my own Ice Cream

13. Make Breakfast Muffins

16. Make meringues

35. Make a mocktail

83. Bake something for work

But at the beginning of December there were still a few left… some of them on purpose, but not all… And while all the cooking things on the list were things I had wanted to do for a while, or things I felt might stretch me and my skills… and hopefully increase my confidence in the kitchen, in December I got my chance to shine… This month I have been able to knock another 4 cooking things off the list…

41. Try 1 recipe from each of my Donna Hay Subscription Magazines
This one has taken all year, mostly because it was a yearlong subscription… but it has been fun.  I still lean towards baking biscuits and sweets rather than dishes and meals, but I have tried to vary it up a little and this was the result:

54. Use every appliance in my kitchen at least once
I don’t have pictures of every appliance so you will just have to trust me that I did… and it was fun…

93. Make a gingerbread house
This is probably the one I am most proud of, if I am honest.  Previously even just the gingerbread alone has been a disaster… missing ingredients and not tasting all that good.  But not only was the gingerbread delicious, but the house went together and stayed together… and looked pretty good too, even if I say so myself…

100. Have a dinner Party
I am also very happy about this one… this year I hosted Christmas dinner at my house, with my Dad, my brothers and my sister-in-law, and it went well… nothing was a disaster, all had a good time, and it all came together perfectly… dinner party complete.

So after it has all been crossed of the list, how do I feel about my cooking skills? Well… pretty good.  I can cook… I can cook good food and amazing dessert.  Of course, I am not chef quality and it still takes me a while, but I feel like I have proved to myself that if I just give it a go I can do it, even the more challenging ones… the skills are definitely there and it can only get better from here.