What are your spices of life?
 

I've been cooking since I was fourteen and after a few years of sticking to the exact recipe religiously, I broke away and experimented and poked with as much food as I could. I found that just spices could drastically change what ever it was that I was cooking, sometimes using entire leaves or oils to change the texture. So my question is what spice do you fancy? What is the spice you most often find yourself using? I myself use a lot of sage and basil.

I find myself putting paprika in jusy about everything. Good stuff, that.

Come to think of it I don't think I've ever used peprika in anything, I'll have to try that. I made the mistake of putting some garlic powder in some chicken ramen the other day. Warning, don't do what I did :doh:

garlic and onion powder. I find it just adds something to whatever recipe I'm using. Also, it it's applicable to the food, I love using black peppercorns, they're a favourite too.

ooOOoo, neat, I use a lot of peppercorns, sage, basil and a few other things I can't remember off the top of my head when I marinate my turkey overnight before thanksgiving so it won't bake so dry. I also marinate ham over night before cooking because it is usually salted so much and doing so dulls down the salt and allows more flavor and texture in.

I put cayenne pepper in/on anything. Ramen, steak, hamburger, chicken, pork, beef, gumbo, turkey, you name it; I pretty much use it. Hell, I even put it on pizza.

I like spicy stuff and cayenne pepper gives it that extra unf that I like.

yeah, I'm with ya on the ham, I hate it when a ham has been spoiled with too much salt. My mom used to marinate the ham so well when she made it...I miss her good cooking D:

Yeah, also it depends on what kind of ham that you buy, I've found out that you can't go and buy an off brand if you want to get one worth cooking.

At least your mom could cook, my mom gave me a can of something everyday :p

Amen!!

I like salt! It adds a rich robustness to what ever meal I'm preparing. Even dessert! Personally, I find pepper a wee bit spicy for me. I only have it if I'm feeling adventurous. Once I had pepper and salt in the same meal, It was outstanding!

I usually add an obscene amount of salt on ramen noodles, I guess after eating it for so many years the taste gets bland and you just have to dress it up.

Its really not good to get into the habbit of adding certain things to everything. Get different tastes sometimes if you leave out usual things and add others :]

Anyway, i sometimes use most that people mentioned, basil oregano blah blah. Curry powder is ok in some things, garlic is better than garlic power, and its summer so i can grow fresh spices in the backyard and use them ~

True, especially over using salt for those who have high blood pressure problems. High blood pressure+sodium=bad. Hot things too, but my theory on that is "I'm 20, I'm only this young for so long so I'm gonna eat the hot stuff while I can." Better than not living at all I guess or just giving myself problems in old age but what ever it is I'm happy right now.

Yeah, well thats true. But i didn't mean like, overloading a food with a certain ingredient so that dominates, i meant some people might get into the habit of "oh i add ___ to everything so i'll just put some in this too" when i could taste better with someone else, or with nothing at all :)

Yeah, shouldn't overload your tastes with the same thing, do it for too long and you'll bore yourself of the spice all together.

And i guess it depends when / what you add. You can hate a spice a lot if you use it once the food is done, but i guess its safer to be more generous with it while cooking.

You can't really cook anything with spices when you're in a rush either, its always better if you slow cook so all the flavor gets in. I wanted to eat something at home before going to work and I turned to stove on the highest heat it would go and rushed everything and it turned into crap.

If you're using fresher things, thats true. I don't think it matters as much if its like dried oregano or chives or whatever.

Thanks, I'll have to remember that.

Black / White pepper and oregano is the one I use most often. I use chilli powder only sometimes. And I didn't know garlic counts as spice! I use it in about everything :D

Well i guess it was silly of my to mention garlic, but people were calling garlic powder a spice, so yeah.

You just reminded me of how much I practically use a whole tube of chili powder when I make chili.

i like basil, garlic, onion, and curry. very delicious in pasta and tomato saucy dishes.

I guess ginger is ok at times since i'm eating it right now.