Gourmet Home Cooking - How to find fine quality food

 

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>>> "From airborne honey to the finest vinegars..."

Airborne Honey: While quite a strong flavoured honey, Kamahi is in fact a honey with very complex flavours and aftertones that send honey gourmets into paroxysms of delight. Cooking and baking recipes, where it is desirable to have an identifiable honey flavour, benefit immensely from the flavour sensations of Kamahi Honey.

Kamahi honey has traditionally been one of New Zealand's most under rated honeys. While it is produced in both the North and South Islands, most Kamahi honey is produced on the West Coast of the South Island. Here Kamahi trees (Weinmannia racemosa) form a significant part of the forest canopy, growing to around 25 metres at maturity.

Finest vinegars: Telegraph Hill Balsamic Drizzle is truly delicious. Made from naturally fermented Hawke’s Bay balsamic vinegar. This drizzle has been slowly reduced with brown sugar giving an irresistible caramelized flavor. Drizzle over salads, beef, fish, seafood, fresh vegetables and fruit. Delicious with strawberries or as a dipping sauce. Adds great flavor to pasta, risotto and lentil dishes. Be Creative!!

 

 

 

>>> It's Easier than you think to make your own Pasta Sauce Recipes!

Making your own pasta sauce recipe is an easy, healthy and cost-effective way to get dinner done. When you learn some basic procedures, it becomes simple to make a variety of sauces to suit almost any pasta. And since you are controlling the ingredients, you know exactly how this sauce ranks on the healthy scale. A great added bonus to going homemade is that making your own sauce will even save you money over buying the jarred variety. Really - there is no reason making homemade sauces shouldn't become a part of your cooking toolkit - a skill you'll be able to use almost every day. Let's review the procedures of three of the most popular and common sauces you'll encounter when making pasta.

Become a Master of the Marinara Sauce Recipe

The first thing you want to do when making any marinara sauce recipe is to remove the skins and seeds from the tomatoes. This is the first step in making tomato concasse, which is the first ingredient in tomato sauce, one of the five "Mother Sauces" in French culinary. Here's my quick technique for blanching tomatoes for concasse:

1. Take fresh tomatoes, Core on one end and score an "x" on the other end with a knife. This will be where the skin peels away from the tomato during boiling.
2. Place tomatoes in a pot of boiling water and let them boil. The object is not to cook the tomatoes, but to cook the outside skin so watch your X carefully.
3. Remove the tomatoes as they are ready (this will vary by tomato due to size and ripeness) and "shock" them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking.
4. At this point, it should be very easy to peel away the skin and remove the seeds. If it's not, the tomatoes have not boiled enough.

Chop up the tomatoes coarsely to make tomato concasse. You could also puree this for a smoother marinara sauce recipe.

Taking your tomato concasse or puree, you will now complete the 2nd step to making tomato sauce. This will require you to use the saute method - a direct heat conductive cooking method. Here's the basic procedure:

1. In a hot pan coated with olive oil, saute chopped onions and garlic.
2. Add your tomato concasse (or puree). This is also where you'd add any other vegetables, like mushrooms or peppers, to your tomato sauce.
3. Add vegetable broth and reduce the sauce until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed.
4. Add some canned tomato paste to thicken and heat the mixture through.
5. Add basil, oregano and any other seasonings you'd like in your marinara sauce recipe and serve over pasta.

This is quick, too. You can be making the pasta of your choice at the same time as the sauce and in under an hour, you've got a truly impressive homemade dinner in under an hour. Even better - you aren't paying $11.95 (per person) plus tax and tip for it at a restaurant!

Make any White Sauce Recipe with One Procedure

Bechamel - another one of the five "mother sauces" of French culinary - forms the foundation for every white sauce recipe. From the restauant favorite, fetuccini alfredo to the classic, macaroni and cheese - white sauce equals comfort food in a lot of cases. The key to making this velvety sauce as smooth as you want it to be is controlling the milk to roux ratio. This is something that is best determined with your eyes - not a recipe!

Melt butter on the stove, keeping in mind that the best way to melt butter is with melted butter. Melt a little butter, remove it from the heat and swirl it around to melt more butter. Repeat until all of the butter is melted. Then remove the pan from the heat and add some flour - a little at a time, watching. When the mixture thickens to the consistency of porridge, you've got roux and it is time to return to the heat. Your goal here is to cook the roux until the majority has turned from yellow to white. During cooking, you will smell a toasty smell as the proteins cook out. Now comes the most important step: the milk. You will continue to add milk - a little at a time - until the sauce stops thickening. So here's the process:

1. Add some milk and stir.
2. Stop stirring and observe.
3. If the sauce starts thickening again, add more milk.
4. Continue steps 1-3 and continue adding milk until the sauce doesn't thicken back up afterwards.

Here's an optional trick for adding garlic flavor, but not adding the lumps that come with chopped garlic. Simmer whole garlic cloves in the sauce for a bit and then remove them before serving. This will infuse a nice garlic flavor into a white sauce recipe - but no lumps! Finally, if you are making an alfredo (or macaroni and cheese), add your favorite cheese(s), stirring over heat as they melt.

A Buttery Garlic Sauce Recipe in Less then 30 Minutes

I saved my favorite garlic sauce recipe for last for a couple of reasons. First, it is a great sauce because you can make it rather quickly, using ingredients you most likely have on hand. However, this homemade pasta sauce recipe can be a little bit trickier than the first two, which makes some shy away from it. But, don't worry. With a few tips, you'll be making this one like a pro tonight!

Again, we start with one of the French culinary mother sauces - this time: beurre blanc, a saute of shallot (with garlic) and any liquid and mounted with cold butter. The trick to this sauce is to always keep the butter yellow. If your butter stays yellow, it means that the sauce has not broken. Here is my best tip for keeping the butter yellow in your garlic sauce recipe. This is one time, we don't start with a hot pan (as we normally would in saute method). The cold pan and cold butter hit the heat together. To melt the butter, without burning it:

1. Melt a little bit of butter.
2. Remove from hit and swirl around to melt more butter.
3. Return to heat for a couple of seconds to get the butter hot again.
4. Remove from heat and swirl around to melt more butter.
5. Repeat steps 1-3 until all the butter is melted.

When the butter is melted, you add your shallot and garlic and saute, but you don't want to brown anything here. Controlling the heat (so as not to separate the butter) is the most important secret for success when making this sauce. Keep the butter yellow - can't stress that enough! Once the shallots and garlic have cooked to become translucent in color, add a cold liquid (usually white wine) and then cold butter, cut in consistent squares. If the pan starts to get too hot (as evidenced by white specs floating to the top of the butter), you will remove it from heat and add more cold butter to cool the sauce quickly. You can always heat it back up again when you cool it - but you can't fix it once it has actually broken. When you are satisfied with the consistency and flavor of the garlic sauce recipe you've created, add salt and white pepper to taste and serve on your favorite pasta.

With a little practice, you will become very good at whipping up a great pasta sauce recipe every night based on what you have on hand in your house. For everyday cooking, a great sauce paired with pasta makes for a great and complete meal. With these techniques and your creativity, there is no stopping the great cook in you from emerging!

This culinary page is all about food, canned, beverage, drink, dairy, biscuit, organic, spice, vinegar, cakes, cereal, chip, chocolate, fruit, dukkah, kaitaia, watties, comvita honey, gift and baskets.

 

 

>>> Grilling Success Made Easy with these Cooking Tips for Gas Grills 

Grilling, like any basic cooking method, can be mastered. These cooking tips for gas grills will get you started on the road to expert grilling any time of year. Although most people see it as easy, grilling is actually one of the most challenging basic cooking methods. If cooking is like driving a car, grilling is like being strapped to a rocket ship! Since grilling is an intense form of direct heat cooking, controlling the heat can be tricky. This presents the greatest challenge to home cooks. As the weather starts to get nicer and the great outdoors beckons, attention starts to turn to outdoor cooking - and gas barbeque grills can't be beat for simplicity and convenience. Now more than ever, smart home cooks are looking for the best cooking tips for gas grills to make their work faster and easier - and their results better. But grilling only becomes EASY when you know these simple cooking tips for gas grills that are guaranteed to improve your results.

Preparing Recipes for the Grill

Cooking all recipes for the grill starts with understanding how the grilling method acts differently on different types of foods. Because grilling is an intense heat form of cooking, careful product selection is extremely important. The grill will not tenderize meats so you must start with a tender product if you want to end with a tender product. Marinating meats when making recipes for the grill is the best way to apply some tenderizing properties before cooking. The product itself is also an important consideration because you want to make sure it will be able to withstand this form of direct high-heat cooking.

Different products will handle this differently and some are just not the best choice for standard grilling. A very delicate fish, such as tilapia, will not perform very well on the grill because the high heat may burn the outside of the fish before the inside cooks at all. Another consideration is when grilling combinations of different foods, as in skewering vegetables. A mushroom will cook faster than a carrot or potato, for example. You will achieve far better results by par-cooking the "harder" items prior to skewering so that all vegetables are the correct done-ness at the same time. Once you have considered the differences in the types of foods you will be grilling and preparing them accordingly, the basic procedure for creating recipes for the grill is:

1. Heat the grill on HIGH with the lid closed to heat up the coals and grates to as hot a temperature as possible.
2. Brush the food item with the oil of your choice and place it on the hot grates - presentation side ("pretty side") down.
3. For GRILLING, leave the grill cover OPEN.
4. After a few minutes inspect the item. You are looking for the item to start to brown around the edges and to see pink (almost clear) moisture bubbling up to the top. This wil be your signal that the item is 75% cooked on one side and that is the time to flip it.
5. Do not use a fork to flip the item and do not puncture it in any way - because that will allow precious juices to escape.
6. Using an instant-read thermometer - because this is the only real way to know when something is done - remove the item 5-10 degrees BEFORE the desired final internal temperature.

A Gas Grill Cooking Twist

Although GRILLING is always done with the lid cover open, gas grill cooking can incorporate additional cooking methods that make it preferable to cook with the grill cover closed. With the grill lid closed, the grill changes from a CONDUCTIVE cooking vehicle to a CONVECTIVE cooking one - more like your oven. Of course you could just use your oven for using these cooking methods, but outdoor cooking does have some advantages over indoor cooking - particularly in warmer weather. So how do you turn your dry heat, direct source cooking vehicle (the grill) into one that can utilize a moist convective cooking process? It's actually a pretty cool technique for gas grill cooking. This is a trick I use most often with delicate fish, such as tilapia. First, I turn the heat OFF on the side of the grill that my tilapia will cook.

Then, I add a pan of water to the bottom of the other side of the grill - right on top of the heat elements. Keep in mind that this "water" can be any kind of liquid you like. I use shrimp stock sometimes with fish, but you can season it with chicken broth, wine - anything that is liquid and imparts nice, complimentary flavors to the product you are cooking. Then, the fish is placed either directly on the grill (if you have a flat grate option) or you can put it in a cast iron pan and put it on the grill grates. The rest of the procedure for this type of gas grill cooking follows the normal grilling process - cook with your eyes and observations, flip after 75% done, use a thermometer to determine final temperature and remove a bit "early" to allow for the carry-over cooking that occurs. And that's it, now you can consider gas grill COOKING in addition to standard GRILLING for great outdoor cooking results.

Gas Barbeque Grills vs Charcoal Grills

You will hear from many self-proclaimed GRILLMASTERS that the traditional charcoal grill is far superior to the gas barbeque grill, but the gas grill has many advantages that make it a great choice for any outdoor cooking situation. I will admit that the charcoal grill provides opportunity for a deep, smoky flavor that is not fully achievable with the gas barbeque grill, but after that all of the "pros" go into the gas grill's column. For starters, the gas grill is much easier and safer to start because it uses propane as fuel and starts at the press of a button. Charcoal grills can be easily started with lighter fluid, but this can be dangerous, and can impart an undesirable taste into the food. Plus, the gas grill turns OFF as easily as it turned on! No waiting for coals to cool so that you can empty and clean the grill and no messy coals to dispose of. The other nice thing about gas barbeque grills is that they allow for consistent heat throughout the cooking process. With the charcoal variety, the cook has to really control the heat by actually moving products closer and further and this takes some practice and experience.

 

 

>>> Best Chili for your Tailgate Party 

It takes a long time to cook chili and develop the flavor to make it the best chili. So, the best chili for your tailgate party must be made ahead of time, in the kitchen and kept warm through game time. I shared my brick-solid secret for keeping foods warm earlier this week. Now, I want to share a few ideas on WHAT we're keeping warm, my favorite chili recipe.

Your expression of chili shouldn't have a recipe. Your best chili should be the chili recipe that comes from your imagination and favorite combination of ingredients. It's a fantastic opportunity to use basic cooking methods and create something that has no rules.

I advise people who want to learn to cook to start with something like soup, stew, or chili. This is where there's great freedom to explore different ingredients while using basic cooking methods.

A great chili recipe starts like a saute procedure, with a hot pan and some fat to conduct the heat. The protein product you choose doesn't have to be ground beef. In today's video, I create a filet mignon chili, using the scraps from a whole tenderloin we cleaned in a previous lesson at WebCookingClasses. Rather than beef, you can choose chicken, turkey, roasted vegetables, even shrimp or lobster chili.

The best savory flavors in chili are combined during the initial saute. Here's where the rendered fat from your protein product combines with the onions, garlic, peppers, or dried herbs you choose. A deglazing liquid is needed then needed to add texture, only to evaporate most of it, leaving its flavors behind.

Your chili recipe is now ready for a long, low, and slow simmer to tenderize, reduce, and combine flavors. Here's the time to let your chili breathe. Don't cover your chili pot unless you want to steam rather than reduce.

To bean or not to bean? You can debate whether the best chili recipe contains beans or not. This divides all people in their expression of a personal best chili. The important part is to learn to cook with basic methods and instill your personal desires to make the best chili recipe you've ever had.

 

 

>>> You don't have to suffer these effects of fear of cooking

Because the kitchen plays a particularly important emotional role in many people's lives, not knowing how to cook can have devastating effects. Some people that have come to me to learn to cook have told me stories that not only explain their fear of cooking but have made it almost impossible for them to learn how to cook.

One of the ways that fear of cooking is intensified is through smells. Your sense of smell has a powerful links to your memories. In fact, I'm sure that most of you have memories that come flooding into your mind when you smell cookies baking or a pot roast. I have strong memories when I smell the chlorine from a pool that remind me of swimming and snack bar hamburgers.

Memories are not always positive. For example, I had one woman that came to my cooking school and told me that she can't cook. Later in the evening as she was learning how to cook (funny how well cooking by method works), she explained to me that as a child, every time she went into the kitchen, her mother would scream, "Get out of the kitchen. You're going to mess everything up. You're going to ruin things. This is not a place for children." No wonder she had a fear of cooking!

Let's look a little more deeply into the 10 ways that the fear of cooking may affect your life:

1. Anxiety - this can come from the thought of the "impending" meal and not knowing what to cook or how to cook.

2. Depression - eating the same things over and over again can cause depression and place a person in a lull where they lose the desire to learn to cook.

3. Lethargy - most often this comes from eating foods that aren't good for us. In particular, eating empty calories or fast food over and over again.

4. Embarrassment - are you the person that always brings napkins to the pot luck? Not knowing how to cook can cause embarrassment when you never bring a meal to gatherings.

5. Loneliness - eating home cooked meals has the potential to bring families together. Without home cooked meals, there may be a sense of loneliness because so much conversation and socializing occurs over a cooked meal.

6. Non-Reciprocation - Have you been invited to dinner by your friends multiple times and never returned the favor? This can cause a feeling of being a "deadbeat".

7. Poor provider - Not knowing how to cook can lead to a lack of variety for your family and feeling guilty from not feeding your children healthy foods.

8. Taker/not giver - Always depending on your spouse or partner to cook for you can make you feel like a taker and never being able to give back to the cook in the family.

9. Spend-thrift - Do you have kitchen gadget that were gifts or purchased that you don't know how to use? Do you have a multi-thousand dollar range that makes popcorn? This type of guilt can intensify the fear of cooking.

10. Money stress - When one has a fear of cooking and doesn't learn how to cook, there is a tendency to spend more money on take-out foods which can cause anxiety around money and cooking.

You don't have to suffer these effects of the fear of cooking! These are exactly the types of feelings and thoughts that drive me to continue to help people to understand how easy it is to learn to cook using simple cooking method. Having an understanding of how foods go together without using a recipe can not only make the fear of cooking go away, but will enable you to cook anytime anywhere with confidence. You will not only know how to cook but will never suffer from the devastating effects of the fear of cooking again!

 

 

>>> What Would You Hide if The Food Police Raided Your Kitchen?  

So, you've been committing crimes against your stomach instead of cooking healthy, nutritious food. Maybe you're thinking that it's not so bad, I mean, what's wrong with eating pre-packaged foods, processed foods, frozen foods, foods with ingredients you can't say, much less spell? What's wrong? Well, it's a crime to treat your body that way! What do you think your body does with all of those ingredients? It's not only unhealthy, I want to know what you think you would do if the Food Police were to catch you committing your crimes.

What would you do?

Well, of course, you would have excuses! Isn't that what we do when we're doing something that we know is wrong? Sure it is! And, I've come up with a list of excuses that the Food Police might hear from you...

The Speeding Excuse:

"Officer, I don't have the time to cook." "I'm in a big hurry!" "It's just quicker and easier to go to the drive-thru."

The Broken Speedometer Excuse:

"Officer, the oven temperature is off, so I can't cook anything." "My oven just doesn't work right and I don't have the right pans." "I just can't cook."

The Impending Event Excuse:

"Officer, It's an emergency, I'm a pregnant woman and I have to get to the drive-thru!" "My kids have basketball tonight and this fast food place is on the way."

I have to tell you that just as with real policemen, none of these excuses would soften the food police. However, there are some changes that you could make to your eating habits that might grant you some leniency from the food police.

If the food police are watching you: Whole Fruit Breakfast: Eat an apple or your favorite piece of fruit each morning instead of your favorite muffin or other baked goods.

Whole Food Lunch: Instead of walking under the golden arches, if you were seen walking into the grocery store for lunch, returning with a salad, cooked chicken breast, or whole fresh fruit juice, the food police just might look the other way.

Healthy Dinner: If your house is bugged by the food police, you'll want them to hear the sounds of a basic sauté method, the sizzle of a sauté pan, the oven opening and closing and the timer going off.

Cooking and eating more nutritious foods will help you to keep the food police at bay and even if they catch you committing the occasional crime against your stomach, you'll be more likely to have the charges dismissed in open court.

 

 

>>> The Best Homemade Pizza Recipe Delivered in 7 minutes or It's Free! 

Tim Bass of Sunburst Tomatoes says he prefers the raw, natural flavor of his tomatoes in a Tomato Sandwich, "two slices of bread, some mayonnaise and a slice of tomato" is his favorite homemade tomato recipe.

Well, that might suit the tomato farmer, but Tim sent me home with a sack full of quality tomatoes and all I can think about is a homemade pizza recipe that I simply call "tomato pie". I don't use pizza sauce. No, instead, I use sliced tomatoes. But I'm jumping ahead in this cooking class, let's start with the crust.

18-10-2

This is my tried and true basic homemade pizza dough recipe: 18 ounces flour, 10 ounces water, 2 teaspoons of yeast. This will be the basis for the pizza crust that will then complete the standard 10 step yeast dough process.

You want to take time mixing the ingredients together, because you want for gluten to develop in the process. Moisture and agitation develop gluten which will help to develop that wonderful chewy crust that we've all come to expect and love in our pizza. After the pizza dough is mixed, you need to allow it to ferment until it doubles in size. At this point, knock all of the air out of the dough and allow it to rise again. Now, the homemade pizza crust starts to take form. Using a rolling pin and a thick marble* slab, flatten the dough to create the pizza crust.

*(Marble is a wonderful medium to use when you are dealing with dough or pastry because the thickness of the slab helps to keep the temperature consistently cool to create a better product.)

I like to use a pizza peel to get my pizza in the oven. I put a little bit of corn meal on the peel to help with the flavor as well as making it easier to get the pizza off of the peel when I'm ready to put it into the oven. Once the homemade pizza crust is on the peel, I like to go around the edge of the pizza crust folding over the edge to form the outer edge of the pizza. Also, brush on a little olive oil to ensure a nice brown crust and I like to add some freshly cut garlic as well.

Let's keep moving along in this cooking class... Instead of a tomato sauce recipe, thinly sliced tomatoes will form the foundation of the tomato pie recipe, and this homemade pizza goes in the oven, on top of heated stones.

What? Only tomatoes on the homemade pizza? No, I want more ingredients, but the tomatoes take longer to cook! Only after the tomatoes have cooked is the cheese and basil added. Basil is too delicate to allow it to bake for the same time as the tomatoes, so it's added at the very end in a fancy French knife skill called "chiffonade".

The best homemade pizza recipe is the one that uses the freshest, best ingredients, like tomatoes from your local farmer. The homemade pizza that you create will have much more flavor, nutrition and sense of pride that you made it. Not only that, it will be better for you as well. I hope you've enjoyed this cooking class, now go make a pizza!!

 

 

>>> Grocery Shop to Cook on a Budget

Cooking at home is certainly more cost effective than eating out. But in order to cook on a budget, it doesn't mean that you have to buy cheaper food. Generally, cheaper food is less healthy for you, and everyday cooking should call for the most wholesome ingredients you can find.

If you have stress over cooking at home while still cooking on a budget, the first place to start is in the grocery store where your food bill originates. There are some simple ways that you can lower your grocery bill without having to buy inferior products and still make cooking at home nutritious and fun.

First, know your basic portions for the people for whom you cook. The following list gives you the averages for each type of food product that I'm going to discuss today (per meal): * Protein = 5 ounces raw protein * Vegetable = 4 ounces raw vegetable * Starch = 3 ounces raw starch

What this means is that if you're cooking for four people, 5 ounces of raw protein times 4 people is 20 total ounces. That's less than a pound and a half total. Now, you have a quantifiable number to buy. Don't buy the three pound container of chicken breasts, you'll over-cook, over-portion and waste food and money.

Be able to do some simple math while in the grocery store, because packages are down-sizing. Notice that many boxes of pasta are no longer a full pound. Many have been down-sized to 12 ounces, but the price not down-sized appropriately. You need to figure out the cost per ounce, or some common denominator so you can compare the products correctly.

However, you also have to keep this in mind when you are thinking about portion sizes. In my household, I prepare 5.3 ounces of dry pasta for two people. This gives me three meals out of a 1 pound box. However, if I can only buy a 12 ounce box, it's easy to just make the whole box. Don't! The result will either be that you overeat or have to throw leftovers away. Be aware of the portions and save the uncooked leftovers in the box for another day. Your stomach and your pocket will thank you.

Cooking at home can save you more money than ever when you know your portions. Knowing your portions and paying attention to package sizes will make you able to purchase with your cooking in mind and not over-buy, pay the highest price per ounce, or throw the leftovers away. Your goal for cooking on a budget is to purchase only what you'll cook, and cook only what you purchase. This is everyday cooking with your budget in mind.

FEATURED GOURMET COOKING ARTICLE:

>>> Can't Cook On a Budget? It's Grandma's Fault.   by Chef Tod Mohr 

Cooking everyday at home is a great way to cook on a budget. But sometimes, the habits that we picked up as a kid can be detrimental to saving money on food. Let me explain what I'm talking about - remember the end of most family meals when grandma would push the serving platter at your already loosened belt and waist-band?

"Eat it or it'll go to waste" she'd always say.

"If it'll go to waste, what did you cook it for"? was my thought, even as a young kid. "Isn't there a way to figure out exactly how much you should cook?" I didn't actually say that sentence out loud...I never was fond of the taste of soap. But, it only took my 8th grade math skills to figure out what grandma hadn't been able to for decades.

The precise portions you feed your family is the basis of cooking on a budget. When you know exactly how much each person will eat, you'll know how much to buy, and how much to cook, eliminating over-buying, over-cooking, wasting leftovers, or letting food spoil while in your possession.

The average cooked portion is 4 ounces protein, 3 ounces vegetable, 5 ounces starch per person. If your husband is a big eater, adjust upward. If your wife is petite like mine, adjust downward. But, with a digital scale and keen observation, perhaps a notebook, you'll arrive at the quantifiable amount that everyone in your house eats.

Now, you can begin saving money at the grocery store, or using the money you've saved by buying more wholesome, exotic, or expensive ingredients because you know there will be little waste. You'll also be helping the health of your family buy controlling the amount of food they eat.

In her everyday cooking, Grandma offered you more and more of what she prepared and she did it out of love for you. Today, when you're cooking at home, the best way to show love to your family is by preparing a wholesome meal that is an appropriate amount for all to enjoy, while still being able to cook on a budget.

==>> "Before I became Chef Todd Mohr, I was Todd Mohr - a guy who liked to cook. A lot of people, including me, even thought I was a pretty good cook. For starters, I had my five meals, well, recipes, I suppose, that I could make well. Being a creative person, I also used some of the techniques from my tried and true 'recipes' to experiment a bit with new dishes. Some were good and some not so good, and I usually never knew what the difference was. I enrolled in culinary school, and spent several years applying the basic cooking methods I'd learned to large-scale kitchen production.

"The greatest thing I learned in culinary school was the 'how' and the 'why' that had been missing from my cooking all those years. My recipes only gave me the 'what' - which left so much out! The greatest thing I gained in the years after culinary school, was the practical experience from working in kitchens and experimenting at home. Being observant, I learned even more 'hows' and 'whys' in addition to 'whats' along my culinary journey. This experience and experimentation, more than anything else, is what turned Todd Mohr into Chef Todd Mohr Then came my own business, a catering company and eventually recreational cooking school.

"It was at The Cooking School that I developed the cooking program that has now taught hundreds of people to cook. Now, with WebCookingClasses.com, I am able to share these techniques with the world."

Chef Todd Mohr is a classically trained chef, entrepreneur and educator. Chef Todd's simple philosophy - burn your recipes and learn how to really cook - has helped many home cooks and professionals alike finally achieve success in the kitchen. Learn his #1 Secret for Free and discover how online cooking classes can really teach you to cook!  "Check out Chef Todd's Online Cooking Classes - Recommended!" - Brian.