Day 15: Colours Of The World, Spice Up Your Life

Getting bored with your meals? Do you feel if you eat one more egg you'll crack? Need to add some pep to your bell peppers? Does your fish fillet flounder? What can you do to add a bit more zing to your food?

Well, look no further than your very own spice rack! Yes, spices can bring life back into your food, and the best part of all is that they're 100% free! That's right! Spices add nothing to your meal plan totals!

If you have never used spices in your food, or the only spices you've ever tried are those that come pre-packaged with your hamburger helper, then you are in for a world of adventure!

SPICE 101: For the spicing beginner, there is a very easy and simple method to exploring spices: Just take a bit of food and sprinkle a little bit of spice on it. It will allow you to taste the flavor of the spice and gives you an idea of how well it will mix with that food item. This way you won't spoil your whole plate with a spice that you find utterly revolting!

SPICE 201: Once you get comfortable with those single spice flavors, it's time to mix it up a bit. Try combining two or three spices together! The easiest way to achieve this is to do something I call "Cooking With Color". For the most part, spices that are the same color tend to work well with other spices of the same hue. Here's a sampling of some spices that work well together with others in their color groups:

White spices: garlic powder, onion powder. (Stay away from garlic salt and onion salt. They're not PCP-friendly.)
Red spices: cayenne pepper, paprika, chili powder.
Yellow spices: mustard powder, curry powder.
Green spices: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, dill weed.
Brown spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice.

Just a little dash of this and a little dash of that from the same color group will help perk up your meals! From there you can advance to the spice blends!

SPICE 301: Spice blends are really great to add pizzazz to any food. Just mix the blend ahead of time and store it in an air-tight container. Usually a spice blend recipe uses enough ingredients to last you a while. Just be careful! Some spice blend recipes include salt! The nice thing is that you can just leave out the salt from the recipe—it won't hurt the flavor a bit!

Here are some of my favorite spice blends that take minimal effort:

SWEET SPICE BLEND

Mix together:
2 rounded tablespoons ground ginger
2 rounded tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 heaping tablespoons powdered bay leaves (Just use a spice grinder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground clovers


STRONG BLACK SPICE BLEND

Mix together:
1/4 cup fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup ground long pepper (If you can't find long pepper, use additional black pepper)
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 whole nutmeg, grated


CHINESE FIVE SPICE BLEND

Mix together:
1 1/2 tablespoons ground star anise
2 1/2 teaspoons ground fennel seeds
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cassia or cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground Szechwan pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

(Optional: 1/2 teaspoon white pepper and/or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger. Both will give added bite and depth of flavor)


CREOLE SEASONING BLEND

Mix together:
2 tablespoons PLUS 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon black pepper

And there you have it! Just sprinkle a little of these spice blends on your food and make the flavor sing!

Until next time,

Bon Appétit!