How fresh are your spices? I have been using freshly ground nutmeg and allspice, and fresh ginger if I have it, in my baking recipes. They give cakes a whole new flavor dimension, and I love to add home-grown orange or lemon zest as well. You can really add some jazz to a simple recipe by adding an assortment of good spices.
A while back my mom gave me some whole organic spices, namely allspice and nutmeg. The nutmeg can be grated, but I had a hard time grinding the allspice berries.
So I shopped around for a good mortar and pestle, and found the cheapest at this site.
As you can see, Amazon is $6 more.
Anyway, I really enjoy good spices. It makes cooking and baking such a sensory experience. And I have decided to slowly buy all my spices from the health food store. They have normal non-irradiated spices, and also organic. I bought some cumin the other day, and it smelled up the entire car! I couldn't believe how fresh it was compared with everything else I have used. This shouldn't be a surprise, as I'm sure irradiating takes a lot of life out of things.
Here's a favorite recipe of mine that uses a TON of spices...yumm. It's vegetarian, so sometimes I'll buy a little lamb to go with it. This conglamoration gives a great flavor, and once you're familiar with them, you can perk up salads and other things as well. Oh...and cook your own chickpeas! They are really easy to do in the crockpot or on the stove, and they taste so much better than canned! (Then there's plenty to make some hummus and all kinds of good stuff.)
Happy eating!
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