The next bunch of herbs and spices
As I mentioned in the first part, cooking at home can save you a lot of money. One of the problems is that if you are the average person (like me), you don’t just start off cooking a large variety of meals that everyone in your family will like. You have to build a cabinet of supplies and tools and you must learn a lot about what you’re doing. This installment will focus on the next group of herbs and spices I recommend buying.
- Goya Adobo with Cumin. This is essentially a Spanish version of garlic salt. However, it contains not only granulated garlic and salt, but also contains Cumin, Oregano, and Turmeric. Goya Adobo is to Spanish food what Lawry’s Seasoned Salt is to soul food.
- Ginger (ground). This is handy if making an Asian recipe or if baking and this ingredient sneaks up on you in a recipe.
- Chipotle Pepper (ground). Chipotle peppers are smoked jalapenos. This one gives a lovely smoky flavor to your chili or is excellent on grilled chicken when combined with other seasonings. This is good for marinades too. It adds an exotic heat.
- Smoked Paprika. This is wonderful for grilled meats and stews. It has a nice smoky flavor.
- Montreal Chicken and Montreal Steak. A respected and established seasoning for chicken and steak. We’ve used it on pork and bison as well.
- Turmeric. For use in Spanish and Indian food.
- Old Bay. A classic seasoning for shrimp and fish. We use it on salmon and in gumbo.
- Old Bay Blackened. The Cajun version of Old Bay. Useful and a little hotter than regular Old Bay.
- Chinese Five Spice. This is sort of like the Allspice of Asian cooking. Put a tablespoon of this in your stir fry and bring it to life. It has a wonderful hint of cloves.
- Mrs. Dash Chipotle. A salt-free seasoning that we like to use in marinades, chili, or sometimes on a bison steak. The lime extract in this makes it have an exotic flavor.
- Parsley (dried). While I prefer fresh parsley, having dried parsley around is great to add some flavor and color to eggs, to throw into an Italian dish in a hurry, or to make a gumbo.
- Seasoned Salt. Any private label brand will do. A little bit of a weird mix but nice to have for a meatloaf or a general seasoning. It has too big of a variety of stuff in it, but it’s still useful.
- Dill mix. This is great to have for tuna or chicken salad and it’s incredible on red potatoes with olive oil.
- Italian seasoning. You’ll find a lot of recipes that call for this. I think it’s a little bit complicated since it has sage and marjoram in it. My opinion is that this seasoning is too complicated for most Italian dishes.
Once you’ve built a nice mix of herbs and spices like my lists, there won’t be many recipes you come across in cookbooks or on the internet that you can’t attempt. You may not have everything for a recipe but that isn’t important. What is important is that you are empowered to do something at home that is as good or better than a restaurant’s food.
One of the things we pride ourselves on in our house is saving money and living frugally, but not sacrificing on quality. I wanted to determine if there was a significant difference in quality between the Cheetos and Aldi brand Crunchy Cheese Curls. We keep these around the house for the occasional snack or for sandwich night.
