Sweet Miss Sheri Ann's: Pick-A-Fruit, Any Fruit, Cobbler

I come from a Southern family. Now, neither of my parents were born in the true South, but they were both raised here, and have family from here. With most true Southern families, one of the traditions that is passed down is cooking, baking, or anything to do with food.

My family is no different. I come from a long line of fantastically wonderful cooks. Cooks that not only created some of our favorite family dishes, but cooks that left their recipes behind! And last fall my mom let me sit down with those recipes and copy them for my cookbook. Yippee!

Tonight's post is courtesy of my late, Aunt Becky of Texas. She had a famous fruit cobbler recipe that is really easy and flexible. Easy, because it takes just a few items that can almost always be found around the house. Flexible because you can change the fruit based on season, availability, and taste.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups self rising flour
1 cup milk
4 tbsp. butter
3 apples, peaches, pears or about 3-4 cups of your favorite fruit

Directions:
Step 1: Slice fruit and heat on medium in saucepan with 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup flour. Stir constantly and heat until thickened.
Step 2: Mix batter - 1 cup sugar; 1 cup flour; 1 cup milk.
Step 3: Melt 4 tbsp. butter in baking dish. (I used a 9 inch pie pan.) Pour batter in pan and pour in hot fruit. Bake until brown at 425 degrees for about 25-30 minutes.

I have made this with fresh peaches before, and it was pretty good. But tonight's creation with Fuji apples was OFF THE CHARTS! I'm not the biggest cobbler fan ever, but I could have eaten this whole thing in one sitting. (I didn't though...I had a normal size portion.)

Here are some pictures of my process (along with some of my tips for those less skilled in the kitchen...and who say my recipes are "too hard.")...

Tip 1 - Slicing and peeling apples - Never my favorite job, but made much easier with a few handy gadgets. I peel my apples with a swivel potato peeler. Fast and easy. Then I slice the apples with this handy, dandy apple slicer below. It not only cuts the apples in pieces, it also cores it. Now, I will say that you have to sometimes cut a bit of extra core out, and I cut the slices in half after using the gadget, but...its MUCH faster than doing it all by hand.

Tip 2 - When cooking apples, put them in before the flour and sugar. Let some of the juices heat up and seep out of the slices. Then add the sugar and flour and heat on medium. Be sure to stir constantly so the flour and sugar don't burn. The flour and sugar will coat the fruit and become thick.

Tip 3 - When adding the fruit on top of the batter mixture, poke down with a spoon or spatula to help it settle. The batter will rise, but it helps to mix the fruit in a bit.