Super Excited for Spices

So the other day, to make a Tagine recipe, I had to go out and buy 4 spices that I didn't already have in my pantry. I am a spice nazi. I hoard them as much as possible because I hate going out to buy news ones. After this particular spice-buying trip, I discovered I had spent about 25 dollars on 4 little jars of spice! I was pretty annoyed, and vowed I would find some other source for spice buying than the supermarket.

I googled wholesale spices and found The Atlantic Spice Company (www.atlanticspice.com).

This place is so cool!! Did any of you know about this place and if so, why didn't you tell me!? You can buy a whole pound of certain spices for as little as $3.50. After going over in my head about how much certain spices cost, even the "cheap spices" (garlic powder/salt, onion powder/salt, celery salt, etc) are cheaper on this website. They also sell essential oils (although I can't claim to know the regular prices of those, but some of you oil people may). They sell various types of rice (a pound of Arborio for $3.50, for example), and different couscous, lentils and quinoa. They also sell bulk and bagged tea in some delicious flavors, and baking goods like tapioca pearls, arrowroot, and they even sell a 1 lb bag of bee pollen (I have no idea what you do with this, but it sounds neat).

I'm also excited because they sell smoked Spanish paprika, which I could not find anywhere and you can even buy spice blends like Herbs de Provence and Adobo seasoning (although Adobo is cheap no matter where you go, I'm just saying).

Check it out and maybe save a little money! Orders over $40 are free, and you ought to be able to get a large amount of different spices for that price :) I doubt you would want to do it if you rarely use any spices at all. I am a big spice fan so even bulk spices wouldn't last so long that they'd go bad. I looked it up and you can apparently freeze spices safely for up to 1 year by placing them individually in small freezer bags and then placing those, in turn, in a large freezer bag. They don't recommend doing this for a long period of time, as certain spices, such as black pepper, cloves, and garlic will become too strong and bitter. Garlic salt/powder and onion both powder and minced do not stay in my house long enough to go bad, no matter how much I have on hand.

Another fun little detail: they give you recipes for potpourri! They have bath potpourri recipes, and sleepytime bed pillow recipes. I imagine either of these would be fun to put together and give as gifts at Christmastime or other major holidays.

Please come back here and let me know what you think!

Simple Mushroom Risotto

At Becca's request, I'm posting this recipe. There are probably a lot of different things you could do with it, like deglazing the pan with white wine, sherry, and adding herbs such as rosemary, sage, or other mushroom-friendly plants. Play around with it as much as you want, but it tastes just fine like this and isn't very difficult. Use whatever your favorite mushrooms are, from portobellas, criminis, oysters, porcinis, plain white, shitakes. I usually use two different kinds to give it depth of flavor but nothing too complex. You do not have to purchase expensive Arborio rice to make risotto, even though Arborio makes the best creamy risotto. Just make sure you get short grain white rice and you will be fine.

Ingredients

-2 cups short grain white rice
-about 8 cups chicken broth, or water with chicken bouillon mixed in
-4 tbs unsalted butter
-2 tbs olive oil
-2 large shallots, diced
-2 cups mushrooms, your choice, chopped fine (make sure the two cups is AFTER they are chopped fine, not before)
-about 1/2 cup large mushroom pieces, halves or quarters, for texture
-salt and pepper, to taste

In a pot as large as necessary, bring to boil all the chicken broth. This is actually quite important.

In a medium to large soup pot, melt your butter in the olive oil and add the shallots, allowing them to turn translucent and brown slightly. Add the mushrooms and salt and pepper everything to layer the flavor.

Once the mushrooms have begun softening, throw in your rice and stir it around for about 1-2 minutes to coat the grains and get them started. This done, add about two ladel-fulls of the boiling chicken broth. (Because the broth was already boiling, it will not reduce the heat of the rice concoction, so the cooking of the rice is never interrupted). Stir the rice frequently until the broth is absorbed. Keep repeating this step until the rice is soft and creamy. If you run out of broth before this happens, just use a little water to finish the job.

Plate a serve with plenty of parmesan cheese.

Easy Peasy Beer Bread

This is a recipe I found written by a gentleman over at Recipezaar. Here's the link: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Beer-Bread-73440. The reason I'm putting it here is 1) to share it with you because it's so easy and a beautiful bread to whip up for dinner and 2)I keep losing/forgetting the recipe and have to keep finding it again online. It really is awesome! I don't bother melting butter to pour over the batter, though. Why dirty up another pan/bowl? I just dot the top with little slices of butter and it's turned out beautifully every time. Hope you like!

Ingredients
3 cups flour (sifted)
3 teaspoons baking powder (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1 teaspoon salt (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 (12 ounce) can beer
1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 cup will do just fine)


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix dry ingredients and beer.
Pour into a greased loaf pan.
Pour melted butter over mixture.
Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.

Pasta Alla Caprese

No, I'm not making this today, or tomorrow, or this week, or the next week. I just want to share it with you because it's so fresh and delicious that keeping it to myself would just be naughty and selfish. Oddly enough, I don't like the sad attempt at authentic mozzarella for this recipe (the kind you find in tubs of water at the store: soft and squishy balls of counterfeit). For this recipe, I like the even MORE pathetic excuse for mozzarella (the solid block kind you find next to monterey jack; Polly-O is my favorite and has the best flavor of these little fakers). The reason is, the fake block version melts better against the hot pasta, while the squishy ball kind just sits there and has a flavor too mild to compete against all the other elements of the dish. Hence, I'm using Polly-O. Use what you want, but don't come complaining to me when you can hardly taste it in here.

Ingredients

-1 lbs pasta, either penne or spaghetti
-4 fresh, juicy tomatoes, ideally homegrown but if you must buy the vine type from the store. You can also use a large can of diced tomatoes and even reserve some of the juice in the can.
-a generous handful of fresh basil (about 20 leaves), chiffonade
-10 Kalamata olives, pitted and halved
-2 large cloves garlic, put through the crusher
-1/2 block of Polly-O mozzarella
-3 tbs of the olive juice (I like this better, but you can use lemon juice if you want)
-about 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (use extra virgin for fresh sauces as it has so much more flavor) and a bit more to coat the pasta

While you're boiling your pasta, in a bowl, place your minced garlic and olive juice in the bottom, then whisk in the olive oil, carefully emulsifying the liquids. Add the tomatoes, olives, basil and toss. If you used canned tomato, let some of the juice from the can get in with everything. Chopped your mozzarella into half-inch cubes. Once your pasta is cooked al dente, drain it and give it a good douse of olive oil to coat it well and toss in your mozzarella (I like to put the cheese in before the cold ingredients so it starts to melt a bit). Finally, mix your tomato mixture into the pasta, salt and pepper it to taste, and serve it up presto.

Raspberry Limoncello Preserves

I am a raspberry-holic. When you combine raspberry with a citrus element, I do believe you've achieved the rapture. I'm not even going to mention adding chocolate to that, it'd be the end of the world. This little recipe for raspberry limoncello preserves is wonderful, but if you do not have limoncello on hand, you could use Grand Marnier, or even just plain lemon (in which case I'd add a couple extra tablespoons of sugar) or orange juice. But the cooked-off alcohol element is quite delicious. Thought I haven't tried it, I imagine that even Amaretto would be incredible. Enjoy!

Ingredients

-1 cup fresh raspberries, washed
-1/3 cup granulated sugar
-2 1/2 tablespoons of limoncello (or other citrus juice)

Place all ingredients together in a small sauce pan. Mush the raspberries as they heat. There should be a decent amount of liquid. Bring everything to a boil and let it reduce a bit till the mixture gets foamy then stir it well. When the mixture is sirrupy, remove it from the heat and let it cool before pouring it into a storage container. It should last about a week in the fridge.

New England Clam Chowder

I don't know about you, but I hate fishy tasting food, even something called Clam Chowder. The reason I enjoy this soup is because the only hint of seafood that you get is when you bite into one of the little clams--just enough for comfort :) Hope you enjoy this.

Ingredients

-2 tbs olive oil
-2 tbs unsalted butter, and another 4 tbs later on
-1 1/2 cups diced yellow onion
-1 1/2 cups diced celery
-1 1/2 cups diced carrot
-2 cups diced yukon gold potato, peeled
-1 1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp pepper
-1 tbs fresh thyme
-1 bayleaf
-3 regular size cans chopped clams in clam juice (reserve the juice)
-1 1/2 cups water with chicken bouillon, or 1 1/2 cups prepared chicken broth
-1/4 cup flour
-1/4 cup heavy cream
-1 cup milk (nothing under 1%)
-1 tsp Old Bay seasoning (optional)

In a soup pot, melt butter with the olive oil and add the diced onion, stirring well until they begin to sweat and turn translucent, but do not brown. Add the celery, carrot, potatoes, salt and pepper. Add the bayleaf and thyme. Open your cans of clams and, keeping back the clams, pour in the juice from each can. Add your bouillon water or chicken broth and bring the whole thing to a boil. Meanwhile, put your flour in a bowl and, beneath the faucet, slowly whisk in cold water, smoothing out lumps as you go. Pour the flour mixture into the boiling pot and stir well. It will thicken up after you do so. Add in your reserved butter, chopped clams, the heavy cream, milk and the Old Bay. Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, till the potatoes are soft.

My Projected Meals This Week

Trying to eat cheap this week. Got to make meals with just a few simple ingredients!

Monday: Laab Gai with White Rice
Tuesday: Roast chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli Salad
Wednesday: Beef Tagine with Cous Cous, Naan, and Indian Lentils
Thursday: Dijon Roasted Chicken, Scalloped Potatoes, and Buttered Peas
Friday: Ziti all'arrabiata (the usual Friday meal)

Can I just say that I love the Perdue Ready Roasters? If you've got a smaller sized family like me, between 1-3 kids, they are just wonderful. A regular, undressed chicken is about 7-8 dollars. A Ready Roaster that's been seasoned and had the neck/giblets taken out is 10. It cooks perfectly and you don't have to touch that disgusting raw chicken. I highly recommend given them a try!