Wellness Weekly
Make Your Own
By Sandy Considine
Make your own seasoning blends and save so much money. Who doesn’t want to save money!! Most people have these spices in the cabinet already so why not combine them and create your own seasoning blends. One good thing about it is that you can vary the amount of a particular spice to your taste. You can’t do that when you purchase a pre-made blend.
Save your very small glass jars from a previous product. Baby food jars are a perfect size, they make a nice storage for your spices. The telltale signs that your spices have gone south. “If the color looks faded or you find yourself using much more than usual to get the same flavor, it’s time to buy fresh spices. If you smell them and there’s not much of an aroma, they probably won’t have much flavor to imbue if you cook with them.
Where you store spices also figures into their longevity and flavor potential. Again, steer clear of hot spots and designate a dark, cool, dry space in your kitchen for your collection. And make sure the jar lid seal tightly. Spices will lose their flavor and potency if you keep them in sunny, hot corners of your kitchen, like next to the stove. Don’t store extra spices in the freezer, but this exposes them to a lot of humidity, which is not ideal.”
Please for your own sanity, label your jars with the name of the spice and the date because I can guarantee you will forget a month from now when you combine them, and some blends look the same. I tell you this from experience… Here are a few blends that probably most everyone would use.
If you absolutely hate a certain spice just cut the amount in half or less or in its entirety. I personally can not have cloves, I hate the taste, but I know if I add less than 1/8 teaspoon when the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon, it will be okay. So, experiment before you totally eliminate it. Tbsp is tablespoon and tsp is teaspoon. Having a spice grinder or coffee bean grinder is needed for spices with seeds or flakes.
Please feel free to email on what you what to know about for a future article at
sandra.considine@yahoo.com
