Spice Month Round Up

For those of you who are regular followers of the site, now you will no doubt be experts in using spices from that infamous spice rack in your kitchen. For the entire month of August I gave you guys recipes containing the most popular spices requested. What I’ve decided to do today is give a run down of what we made as well as highlight some other recipes that I’ve used containing your requests. Now it’s time to tuck into that rack (that didn’t sound so good, did it?) and get cookin’!

We kicked off the proceedings with one of my faves….

Allspice. I did a Jerk seasoned trio of recipes with this bad boy just so everyone could try it out with no excuses! Tell me, who made the jerk sauce? I also busted out a Banana Buckwheat Muffin recipe using allspice for all my baking buddies. Now, these were the business even though I’m not renowned as a ‘Pat the Baker’.

Other GM (Gavan Murphy) allspice recipes:

Healthy fresh baked apple tart

Homemade ketchup

Lamb Burgers

Next up was a bit of a surprise but Dried Thyme got the nod here. I had had a request for a healthy chowder recipe so being all about giving, as I am (by my own admission) that’s what I did. This is my no dairy/no butter version which turned out really well. I must prefer to use fresh thyme over dried since nearly all of my recipes call for fresh. Not to worry, remember our conversion? (If not, click chowder link to refresh your memory).

The one spice I thought would come in first place (I guess isn’t as hard for people) was Turmeric. By the way, is there a reason why we pronounce it TOO-Mer-ic? I really enjoyed working with it and figured since turmeric is a Middle Eastern spice, making an Indian dish was the best way to go. I made a Spiced Bindi (Okra) dish as well as Turmeric roasted mini potatoes with Arugula (or Rocket known across the pond–that one’s for you Eske). Because I was into using this so much I popped out a third recipe, Moroccan Quinoa Salad. This is gooood and a great healthy grain to boot. Still looking for help on my sad little Tikka Salmon, though…any takers?

For the grand finale Mr.Cumin and Mr. Coriander came in together. They’re sort of the Bert ‘n’ Ernie of the spice world, it’s almost as if you rarely see one without the other!

I made a beautiful Cumin Coriander Crusted Halibut with a fresh tomato and fennel coulis. With it being summer I grilled a simple Lamb Kabob with Cumin and to finish of the series I made a lovely Tabbouleh with my neighbor’s parsley (of course I didn’t steal it–she offered!)

More GM cumin & coriander recipes plus Autumn Tagine with spiced couscous

Listed below are the least popular requested spices. Being Mr. Giver I wanted to include them in the fun by highlighting my previous recipes where I’ve used them.

Curry (request was for a non-”curry” recipe)

Pan seared Sea Bass with herbed Quinoa and baby carrots, though I gotta note that I use curry powder on parsnips a lot in the fall/winter. In fact, I just used curry powder on roasted cauliflower last night….

Cinnamon & Cinnamon

Nutmeg

And last but not least, Tarragon. Well again, in all of these I used fresh tarragon but you could certainly use dried using our conversion.

Keep the requests coming–and let me know how you’ve done with your spice rack!