Banana Muffins

When I was growing up I wasn't allowed to experiment in the kitchen. In fact I was hardly allowed to use any utensils, pots, pans or ingredients. That did not help very much when trying to stand on my own two feet later in life. I had zero confidence in the kitchen and did not believe that I could ever make nice food. I thought it would be utterly impossible. Our friends remember me and my husband in our little flat in the 'old days' eating dry pasta for dinner and nothing else because we were clueless about cooking. I was (if you believe it) 24 years old and I couldn't even boil eggs or pasta. We ate bread, dry pasta, cup-a-soups with noodles and not much else. I was constantly sick, got bad flues, a cold every 2 months and was constantly miserable. We then moved to London to study for our masters degrees. I suddenly had all the wonderful produce at my feet (so to speak) which we didn't have in Iceland (such as many varieties of each fruit and vegetable) and it was like a new world to me. However I still did not have much luck in the kitchen area. I was, to be honest a pretty lousy cook. Then one day, during lunch time, my class mate, Lynn, brought some home made banana muffins. I stared at her in wonder. I asked her about the muffins and how she made them. "Piece of cake" she said. I wanted to believe her but wasn't sure I could muster up the confidence. I brought one of the muffins home and gave to my husband. He loved it and the darling he is, said he had complete faith in me. If Lynn could do it, so could I. So started my journey of cooking and I haven't looked back since. Two years later I had opened up a recipe website and almost 10 years later I run a much larger, multinational website and regularly write in newspapers and magazines on healthy eating. The moral of the story is two fold. 1. Allow your children to become confident in the kitchen and give them the support they need and 2. If I can learn how to cook, so can you.