Welcome!

This is my first post, and I was going to start off with my thoughts on good sourdough starter, since that's been on my mind a lot lately, and I find I can use it in a lot of ways I wouldn't have considered a few months ago, but I think I'd better start off easy... plus, I made a really nice raspberry cobbler tonight and I wanted to talk about that.


When it comes to cuisine, I'll be the first to admit to having no formal training.  I've worked in a few restaurants over the years, and that informs some of my cooking; but my real advances came slowly, and only when I struck out on my own and started experimenting.  That said, I started with a fair grounding in the basics, some of it gained through long practice and trial and error.  I read a lot and I pay attention to anything I can pick up from professional chefs (assuming I can find a way to apply it).  I've had subscriptions to Saveur and Food & Wine in the past, and I love them and still have most of the issues around, but while they gave me a lot of good ideas and showed me some new techniques, I always found that there were simply way more ideas in them than I could possibly use.


Here are a few tenets of my personal cooking philosophy and/or observations about my experience in cooking:


1.  Dry herbs have their value and their uses, but fresh herbs are fantastic.
No two ways about it.  I think I first really got hooked on fresh the first time I tried something with fresh basil in it.  Used right, there's just no way to beat that.  As dry herbs go, Herbes de Provence are awesome.


2.  Better ingredients cost more, but in most cases there really is a difference.
Take cheese.  There is just no way that a formed and pressed block of "low-moisture part-skim mozzarella" can compare to real fresh mozzarella.  
Vanilla, extra virgin olive oil, meat, balsamico and peanut butter are other examples (don't talk to me about JIF... peanut-flavored shortening).
Then again, there comes a point of diminishing returns with anything, and sometimes, it really doesn't make a difference to buy the cheap stuff.  You just have to know your ingredients.


3.  The exception to #2 most often comes when you grow it/make it yourself or buy it at the farmers' market.
Real fresh vegetables, from tomatoes to peas, picked fresh, beat the pants off anything in the grocery store.  This also applies to dairy products, particularly cultured dairy products.  I make my own yogurt and buttermilk - it's a piece of cake once you learn how, and it far surpasses anything I've tasted from a commercial dairy.


4.  Playing with soups, sauces, stews, sauté, even roasting and grilling is fun and kind of easy.
This is the area where I tend to experiment the most.  It's hard - though by no means impossible - to wreck these.  There are basics, and then there are ways to fiddle with the basics.  If you do something really unusual, or even stupid, the results may still be palatable - or at least salvageable - and can be quite interesting.


5.  Playing with baking is hard.
Pasta sauces are to baking as painting is to chemistry.  If you let your imagination run wild with paint and canvas (given a certain minimum of technique), you'll likely come out alright.  Try that in a chemistry lab and you could wind up in sorry shape.  Baking really is all about chemistry - acids reacting with bases, producing just the right amount of gas at a certain temperature for so long, while the proteins, sugars and starches in the ingredients do exactly what you want when you want.  Fool around with baking, and the results can be disastrous.  


6.  Easy on the pepper.
I like spicy food.  My wife likes spicy food more.  But if there is one sin I commit in the kitchen with regularity, it is being too free with the pepper, especially black pepper, to the point where it's even more than I can enjoy.  There should be just enough to taste the fresh-ground flavor of the spice, with only minimal heat, a balance I frequently fail to strike.


7.  Fat selection is no small matter.
Use the wrong fat for a dish and you can completely change the nature of the dish.  Solid fats do different things than liquid ones.  Extra virgin olive oil comes in many forms, and is very different from, say, canola oil.  Learn from my fail:  Don't ever use a shortening blend in baking unless the recipe specifically calls for it.  


8.  Don't overcook your vegetables.
Okay, pet peeve time.  Steamed or sautéed vegetables should be tender-crisp.  Mushy texture can be unpleasant, and some vegetables get bitter or lose their flavor altogether if overcooked.  Pierce easily with a sharp utensil, but not mushy.  When sautéing, for example, cook them hot to give them color and add to the flavor, but they should still be firm when you take them off the heat.  Please, only you can prevent mushy veggies.


9.  As in many other areas, use the right tool for the job.
Trying to use a too-small pan or a wrong-shape spoon can be a real pain or even wreck your dish.  Yes, I own soufflé dishes.  No, I don't have all the sizes I want.


10.  Simple can be fantastic.
Sometimes the best thing you can do with a dish is not to dress it up too much.


I'm sure I'll think of more as I go, but in light of #10, here's that cobbler I was talking about:


Tonight, I made this with a bunch of fresh raspberries that I needed to use up.  I had a little more than the 4 cups called for, but cobbler's not too picky (#5 only applies some of the time, I guess).  Also, raspberries tend not to set up very well, I think because they're so acidic, so I used a little extra cornstarch (the truth?  I read the measurement for sugar and dumped in 1/2 cup of cornstarch... but I managed to get the worst of it out... and the filling was still thinner than I'd prefer).
I most commonly use this recipe with frozen blueberries (use the cinnamon).


Easy Fruit Cobbler


Filling:
1/3 c. sugar (1/2 c. for tart fruit like raspberries)
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp lemon juice
4 c fruit, fresh or frozen
1 tsp cinnamon (if using peaches)


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix all ingredients in saucepan.  Cook over medium-high heat until thickened and boiling.  Boil 1 minute.  Pour into a 2 qt casserole dish (a 9x13 baking pan should work, too, but the layers will be much thinner).


Crust:
2 c. Bisquick (I use the reduced fat.  Works the same, tastes the same.)
1 c. milk
2-3 Tbsp suger (your preference)


Mix in a bowl once filling is done.  Spoon over filling.  Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted (just to crust depth) in center comes out clean.