teaspoon spices

Anise seed, chile pepper and basil spice up our favorite mac and cheese http://www.tspspices.com/Recipes.aspx?id=19

Why buy a whole bottle of spice and let it go stale when all you need is a teaspoon? http://www.tspspices.com/OurSpices/storage.aspx

Spiced pancakes!

We like a breakfast of good, hearty pancakes. But we don’t like having to pour syrup or honey all over them and ratchet up the calorie count – and with a good dose of organic spices we don’t have to!

One of our favorite recipes uses ginger, cinnamon and cloves, but you should try it with other spices as well. For instance, try cardamom instead of cinnamon or use nutmeg instead of cloves.  Experiment! It’s hard to go wrong.

Spices – especially organic spices – give you loads of flavor, free from calories and fat. Now that’s a winning combination!

Best breakfast for a cool, overcast day -- oatmeal. Healthy, stick-to-your-ribs hearty, and perfect for the pure flavors or organic spices. You won't miss the sugar!

Spiced oatmeal -- healthy, hearty and just plain good

What better breakfast on a rainy winter morning -- or any morning, really -- than oatmeal? Healthy, stick-to-your-ribs hearty, and the perfect vehicle for yummy condiments.

Like spices -- organic spices.

The only problem with oatmeal is that it begs for additions like cream, sugar and even butter. We solved that problem by reaching for spices instead. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon or ginger or allspice -- or a blend of all three -- and you won't miss the sugar.

 

Simple cider

If you’re on the watch for ghosties and goblins tonight, warm yourself up with some simply mulled cider.

We heated up some good, local apple cider last week, added a tablespoon of honey plus a teaspoon each of ginger, allspice and cinnamon. Then we heated it gently and served it up.

Yum! We loved it better than the more elaborate mulling-spice combinations. It must be the ginger – our current favorite companion for Fall’s fabulous apples.

 

Simple mulled cider

 

4 cups apple cider

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

 

Combine all ingredients in a pot and warm gently. Do not boil.

Food Day every day!

Somebody proclaimed this past Monday as National Food Day, but we like to think of every day as Food Day.

After all, we eat every day, so why not pay daily attention to the goals of Food Day – the need for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.

Here at tsp spices, we like to make that easier for you with convenient packets of organic spices that inspire you to try new ways of enjoying familiar food.

This time of year we are enjoying the Fall harvest, all those choices of winter squash, yams and root vegetables. Our current favorite is butternut squash, peeled, diced, tossed with some olive oil and herbs (we like a teaspoon each of rosemary and thyme), and roasted for 20 minutes or until done.

That’s healthy, affordable, sustainable and humane.

It’s also delicious!

Creamed fennel cabbage

Not everybody in my household loves cabbage.  But I do!  I frequently make a one dish meal of cabbage, apples and pork chops, and everyone is pretty compliant about eating it.  But cabbage as a side dish?  Or plain cabbage as an accompaniment? Not so fast.

I came up with a solution last night, and it is a keeper.  (Even the Doctor agreed to that, and he usually complains that cabbage makes the house smell bad for days.)  I love the sweet flavor of fennel in the autumn, and wanted to make a more substantial dish of the cabbage than just steaming or sautéing usually yields.

 I experimented with creaming a lot of vegetables this summer, as I was totally hooked on the Victory Garden cookbook, and just about every other recipe in that classic volume either calls for cream or is a creamed version.   Then one of the NY Times food writers got me hooked on creamed corn (which I spiced up, of course.)  I have also been trying to eat less meat (well, less food in general if you want to know the truth) but I find I am far more satisfied when I have a little bit of richness in my veggies rather than just plain steamed or roasted veggies.

So I made creamed cabbage.  I had a beautiful tender cabbage from One Straw Farm, our local CSA.  It was lovely in texture and flavor, it did not smell during cooking or afterward, and I served it with a gratin of eggplant and butternut squash. 

Creamed Fennel Cabbage

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 green cabbage head, cored and cut into 4 or 8 wedges (depending on size)

½ cup chicken broth

½ to 1 cup half and half or cream.

 

Melt the butter in a large enough saucepan to hold the cabbage easily.  Add fennel seed, salt and pepper and allow fennel seeds to toast until fragrant.  Add cabbage to pan, and sauté briefly.  Pour chicken broth and cream over and allow to simmer over low heat for about ½ hour, until cabbage is tender and soft.  Remove cabbage from pan with a slotted spoon, then reduce cream and broth mixture until the sauce is thick and almost syrupy. 

Pour the sauce over the cabbage and serve with a lean protein or another vegetable dish as a main course.  Add more salt and coarse ground pepper to taste.

--Katie

 

Blend your own curry powder

Katie's post on curried squash reminded me how much I love curried vegetables this time of year. Something about the warm flavors of cumin, turmeric, and the other spices that make up a good curry blend seem to go well with the onset of cooler evenings.

We love our Smart Spice curry powder blend. But it's also fun to blend your own, which you can easily do. The recipe is simple. And because you can control the amount of each spice, you can make it hotter with more chile pepper, or choose less heat and add more cumin for earthiness or a bit more ginger for that special ginger tingle.

Here's our favorite formula for self-blending curry powder. You can use it for the curried squash coins in the previous post, or in any other dish that calls for curry. One of our favorite uses for this blend is adding it to mayonnaise (start with 1 teaspoon for about 1/2 cup of mayo) and spread it on your favorite lunch-time sandwich. If you don't have all these spices on hand, check out our $10 spice sampler.

Curry powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon mild chile pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Store the unused seasoning in an airtight container for up to 2 months.

Makes 2 tablespoons

--Sara

Curried butternut squash "coins"

I always love autumn- not least because I love the richness of autumn vegetables,  especially squash.

Last week, I picked up a beautiful butternut squash at our CSA, and thought about what to do with it.  I had recently seen a recipe that called for cutting wedges out of an acorn squash and roasting them. 

The shape of butternut squash does not really lend itself to this treatment, so instead I sliced it into "coins," all the way down the neck.  Once I reached the fat part that houses the seeds, I made the coins a bit thicker, and then cut the seedy part out, leaving a ring.

I sprayed a baking pan with non-stick spray, then placed the squash coins on the pan.  This was a small, tender squash, so I didn't even need to peel it. I sprinkled the slices with a packet of Smart Spice curry powder, and roasted them at 375 degrees for a little more than 30 minutes. 

These squash coins were delicious, and lovely to look at.  I plan to include them as a side dish at my next dinner party because they were beautiful, tasty and most important, easy!

--Katie