Top Ten: Gross

I used to love cooking...but never be very good.  When I came home from college I would make things for dinner for my family and they would eat them but with no high praises of my culinary expertise.  I'm not angry about this or anything...I really wasn't that great, but I can tell you that all of it was edible and my Tortilla Soup to die for.
Anyway, flash forward to living with a family where my job requires that three nights a week I make dinner for four.  Not just four, but one three-year-old who doesn't like much, one pregnant lady who can't stomach much, and one weekly delivery of various and changing vegetables leaving me to get creative with what I make as well as learn a whole lot about a whole bunch of greens I never knew existed.
Ok, yes eventually getting to the point.  Regardless of the ever changing supply of veggies, tomatoes seem to always be in the package.  And I hate tomatoes.  Ok...I did.  Well...I sort of do.  I know...I'm weird.  I went 24 years without liking tomatoes, spaghetti sauce (pizza was a different story...except for...see below), tomato soup, even salsa for a time.
But it all started with a salad.  The Mozzarella Caprice salad from Panera.  And I loved it.
But then I had a tomato again...and it was disgusting!
But after ten months of cooking with tomatoes I have figured it out...it's the seeds that disgust me.  They're gross, slimy, and taste foul.  But a nice plump skin of a tomato?  I think I actually like them.  Which is why I painstakingly carve out the seeds of every single tomato be it fist sized, or twenty different cherry ones.
And I realized I was like that with a lot of things.  There are foods that I look at and think I bet that is delicious...too bad I think (insert main ingredient here) is absolutely disgusting.
And with that being said...and with a new icon that I made...I give you...

FOODS I USED TO HATE BUT NOW LOVE

Tomatoes

Pizza - yes seriously there was a while where I was crazy and didn't like this Italian wonder

Guacamole (and avocados in general)

Hummus - I didn't trust garbanzo beans

Artichoke - except for the unmentionable artichoke sandwich incident of 2009

Salmon - maybe it was the pink

Cheese - any and all kinds...I know I was weird

Cottage Cheese - Not exactly cheese, but twice as questionable with its chunks.

To be fair...that looks disgusting

Brussel Sprouts - I think this stemmed from it having the reputation of "punishing food" in all children lore

Spinach - but still...don't give me no frozen crap...fresh all the way baby

However...I do not...and swear to my grave...that I will NEVER like mushrooms.

Word of the day:  tomaat - tomato