ElizabethB
Guru
I love a good steak. I have a cast iron grill pan that I use on the gas grill. I get the pan screaming hot then add the steak seasoned only with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. We both like our steak medium rare. I have learned to gage doneness by touch. If a steak is larger than what I normally use I check myself with a digital probe thermometer just to make sure it is 125 - 130 degrees before taking it out of the pan and setting it aside to rest.
DITTO TR - my family loves my cooking.
My Baby Brother is a very good cook. My only complaint is that in his effort to experiment he sometimes over does it using too many ingredients and hiding instead of elevating the primary ingredient.
My Middle Sister has incorporated some of my tips in her cooking. Her pantry no longer contains canned vegetables, she thinks more about flavor combinations, and she uses fewer, individual spices instead of spice mixes. I have been nagging her to plant fresh herbs. She has a landscaped bed of shrubs and perennials directly off her back patio. I have tried to get her to include fresh herbs in her bed. Baby Sister has herbs scattered in beds and containers. She even planted Rosemary in her front bed for use when cooking and for attractive perennial greenery.
The More I cook the fewer ingredients I use. I want to honor the ingredients by using the best and freshest that I can afford and paying close attention to how ingredients work together. I ask myself if a certain herb or spice truly compliments the ingredient I am using it with. In many cases the answer is no.
When it comes to spices good sea salt and fresh ground pepper are my mainstays. I do use other spices if my goal is a particular cuisine such as Mexican (NOT Tex-Mex) or Indian. Both benefit from specific spices. I do use other spices in moderation if it truly complements the primary ingredient.
I don't know about the rest of you, but my taste has changed radically. I can take one bite and taste any artificial sweeteners or flavors. Recently a friend had a bunch of people over for a cookout. I brought Lemon Crinkle Cookies made with lots of fresh lemon zest and juice - no lemon extract. Another guest brought lemon cake bars. One bite and I knew that she used boxed lemon cake mix and jarred lemon curd. I could taste the artificial lemon flavor in the cake mix. IDK if the curd had artificial flavoring but it was definitely not as good as homemade. By the end of the evening my cookies had vanished, and more than half of the lemon cake bars were still in the pan. Have I become a food snob? Yes. When you learn to cook from scratch with the freshest ingredients your taste changes.
