Herbs & Spices

This is where the fun can come in.  You can take the same dish, and by changing the herbs or spices and sometimes the vegetables you use, turn chicken (for example) into a Mexican, Asian, Italian, or Greek (anything) dish!  Please forgive me for over simplifying if you are an expert in any of these cooking styles.  Just because we’re cooking for one doesn’t mean it needs to be boring.  In fact, I’ve found that when I do feel like cooking, I have a lot of fun experimenting with different combinations — because I can! I don’t worry about what someone else will think of the dish.  Sometimes I hit on something that is so delicious, and I have to try to remember what I did.  And then, sometimes not — a total bomb!  But, oh well! I’m having fun using the ingredients that I happen to have at the time.

Herbs and spices I use the most:

Basil (Fresh is so good and if you can keep a plant alive during the summer, it’s worth it.)
Bay leaves
Cinnamon, ground
Curry powder
Chili powder
Cumin
Dill weed
Garlic powder
Ginger, ground (It’s easy to keep some peeled fresh ginger in the freezer and grate it while it’s still frozen)
Nutmeg — I like to grate my own and one nut lasts a very long time.
Oregano, dried
Pepper, black peppercorns in a grinder
Red pepper flakes
Rosemary — Fresh is awesome — great plant to have.
Salt — I use an old pepper grinder to grind kosher salt or sometimes sea salt (it adds to the fun factor and I like the feel of a little crunch of salt).  They make grinders specifically for salt, but this works for me.
Thyme, dried

There are many, many more herbs, spices and blends that you may want, like an Italian seasoning mixture, or a salt free seasoning, or a Cajun or Creole seasoning, or old bay, or poultry seasoning.  You could go crazy here.  Spices don’t keep forever though.  I recently went through all my spices — opened each one and smelled it.  Some were so old — I hate to think how old they were! Some barely had any scent at all and there was even one that smelled unpleasant.  I threw out almost all of them and now I’m starting fresh (so to speak — actually dried).  Now my list of spices is much smaller than it used to be, but I use all of them.

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