If only I knew how to use them. My husband was a great cook so I hadn't cooked in decades. I tend to use mixtures like Italian Seasoning or Herbs d'Provence because someone already balanced the flavors into a good mix.
My niece thinks this could make a good jigsaw puzzle picture. And seeing it here, I wonder if I should have created a frame by importing this into PS?
Fabulous collection of spices & I feel the same, would love to know how to use spices better....I have the basic ones but haven’t a clue how to improve my cooking with them.
Wonderful. I adore cooking and a herb and spice drawer is a place of great excitement to me! I am glad to see you have proper English Colman's Mustard there. Made in Norwich, you know!
I enlarged this to read the labels. You can tell a lot about a person by their spice jars. Your husband must have been a stellar chef, he used spices from around the world. I think the right frame lends importance to an image.
@casablanca -- I have no idea where my husband got that mustard! But I've always liked the container and also the container for the Herbs d'Provence jar in the lower right. I like the pot so much that I continue to use it even when I have to refill it. The soy sauce flavored sesame seeds on the lower left is from Japan, and the blue truffle salt from my annual trips to Bologna, Italy. @kali66@happypat -- this was my husband's spice collection. @louannwarren -- He was a stellar cook, indeed. His mother was a lifelong home economics teacher starting in the 1930s so she taught him all the basics of cooking from the time he was little, and even as young as elementary school days he was in charge of meals whenever his mother had to leave town to chaperone field trips. I miss his cooking so much, and this pandemic has meant I have had to prepare all my own meals for 11 months now with no meals out or with friends who cook. I am so tired of my own cooking. Especially because every dish I make I have to eat it 4 - 6 times in a row. But this pandemic has forced me to have to take time to do some cooking and I have become a bit more competent but not consistently yet. @newbank@aikiuser@njmom3 -- my niece tells me that I have a good eye for what would make a fun puzzle because our family loves puzzles so much. It's one of the things we always have going whenever we have time together. @30pics4jackiesdiamond -- you're right! I had to stand on a step stool and face down to get this flat-lay even, and I had to use my phone because I couldn't get high enough or balance my bigger camera.
@jyokota what's the oldest best by date on them??? I found 2008 on one of mine at start of lockdown 1 when I cleaned out my cupboards ( oh those were the days.......)
@30pics4jackiesdiamond --- funny you should ask, because I happen to know it's 2012. I also cleaned out my cupboards early in the pandemic (didn't we all?) and I replaced a lot of the older spices with fresher ones that were unopened in the basement pantry (my husband was an obsessive collector and he must have left about 40+ jars of extra spices). So I know that the two that say "best by 2012" were opened only at the beginning of the pandemic. I have no idea how old the mustard is, though.
@kvphoto -- and the cooking spices and Japanese spices are in another cabinet where I have more than 60 others. I do use those. @kali66 -- what a good idea, to go backwards and search by spice! @onewing -- I'll bet there's even a website where I can submit a photo and have a puzzle made.
@stephomy I have SO much cardamom! I have ground seeds, whole seeds, green pods, black pods. And I definitely like the idea of Scandinavian Cardamom Bread. Recipe?
@k9photo@jgpittenger - thanks for commenting. And yes, it's a LOT of spices, especially given that the Japanese spices are in a different cabinet and the baking spices are also in a different cabinet. I do use those.
I would make a challah and just add some cardamom to the mix. I have a great recipe from my job a few summers ago. It's a recipe from the shop's owner's family. It's in classic American cups and spoons. Forgive me for the structure of this recipe. I'm writing it from memory:
Challah
3/4 cups water
3/4 cups milk
Heat this up just warm enough to dissolve some yeast, but not hot enough to kill it. About 110F.
Dissolve in 1.5 Tablespoons of yeast into the liquid, and set aside.
In a mixer bowl add:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup of oil
2 eggs
1.25 Tablespoons of salt
*1 tablespoon of cardamom
Mix that together and then mix in the yeast mixture. Then add 5 cups of flour. With a dough hook mix the dough for 8 minutes... if you don't have a mixer you can knead it for about ten minutes, maybe adding more flour as it gets sticky. It's a rich dough.
Set the dough in a warm spot to rise for an hour.
Once it's doubled in size you have a world of options here. You could do something as basic as greasing a loaf pan and rounding the dough and rolling it into a basic loaf and placing it in the pan, or try out braiding the dough like a traditional challah. I wont get into that here in this comment, but if you want to try it there are a lot of videos out there with instructions. Once your loaf is shaped, cover it and let it rise until it's fully proofed. It should increase a lot in size and bounce back when you poke at it. Knowing just when a dough is proofed just takes experience. The bread will be good no matter, but having it proofed just right will give it a nicer crumb.
Heat an oven to 350F. Beat one egg with a splash of milk in it and brush the egg wash onto the proofed loaf being careful to cover the whole outer surface. Bake for 30 minutes, and check on it. It should be golden brown and not sound wet when you tap on it. If you're not sure, stick a thermometer in the bread. It should be about 190F.
While the bread is baking, prepare a simple syrup. 1/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Just boil it until the sugar dissolves. Brush the bread with the syrup right when it gets out of the oven. You want to do this while it's still really hot so that the water evaporates, and leaves a nice sweet coating on the bread.
@stephomy THANK YOU for taking time to write this all out! I think I'm up for the challenge. stay tuned. Question: why is there a star next to cardamom? I assume ground cardamom? The "splash" as a unit of measure made me smile with self-doubt.
@stephomy -- thanks for solving the mysteries. Stay tuned -- I'll give it a try and. you;'ll see a photo of it if it worked. Otherwise you will see photos of squirrels eating it.
@kimhearn -- I know you live outside of Chicago, and Penzey's just opened in Evanston where I live. Come for a visit after this pandemic is over and we'll go to Penzey's together :) Bring your camera and we can feed Oliver, too.
February 15th, 2021
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@kali66 @happypat -- this was my husband's spice collection. @louannwarren -- He was a stellar cook, indeed. His mother was a lifelong home economics teacher starting in the 1930s so she taught him all the basics of cooking from the time he was little, and even as young as elementary school days he was in charge of meals whenever his mother had to leave town to chaperone field trips. I miss his cooking so much, and this pandemic has meant I have had to prepare all my own meals for 11 months now with no meals out or with friends who cook. I am so tired of my own cooking. Especially because every dish I make I have to eat it 4 - 6 times in a row. But this pandemic has forced me to have to take time to do some cooking and I have become a bit more competent but not consistently yet.
@newbank @aikiuser @njmom3 -- my niece tells me that I have a good eye for what would make a fun puzzle because our family loves puzzles so much. It's one of the things we always have going whenever we have time together.
@30pics4jackiesdiamond -- you're right! I had to stand on a step stool and face down to get this flat-lay even, and I had to use my phone because I couldn't get high enough or balance my bigger camera.
@kali66 -- what a good idea, to go backwards and search by spice!
@onewing -- I'll bet there's even a website where I can submit a photo and have a puzzle made.
Challah
3/4 cups water
3/4 cups milk
Heat this up just warm enough to dissolve some yeast, but not hot enough to kill it. About 110F.
Dissolve in 1.5 Tablespoons of yeast into the liquid, and set aside.
In a mixer bowl add:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup of oil
2 eggs
1.25 Tablespoons of salt
*1 tablespoon of cardamom
Mix that together and then mix in the yeast mixture. Then add 5 cups of flour. With a dough hook mix the dough for 8 minutes... if you don't have a mixer you can knead it for about ten minutes, maybe adding more flour as it gets sticky. It's a rich dough.
Set the dough in a warm spot to rise for an hour.
Once it's doubled in size you have a world of options here. You could do something as basic as greasing a loaf pan and rounding the dough and rolling it into a basic loaf and placing it in the pan, or try out braiding the dough like a traditional challah. I wont get into that here in this comment, but if you want to try it there are a lot of videos out there with instructions. Once your loaf is shaped, cover it and let it rise until it's fully proofed. It should increase a lot in size and bounce back when you poke at it. Knowing just when a dough is proofed just takes experience. The bread will be good no matter, but having it proofed just right will give it a nicer crumb.
Heat an oven to 350F. Beat one egg with a splash of milk in it and brush the egg wash onto the proofed loaf being careful to cover the whole outer surface. Bake for 30 minutes, and check on it. It should be golden brown and not sound wet when you tap on it. If you're not sure, stick a thermometer in the bread. It should be about 190F.
While the bread is baking, prepare a simple syrup. 1/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Just boil it until the sugar dissolves. Brush the bread with the syrup right when it gets out of the oven. You want to do this while it's still really hot so that the water evaporates, and leaves a nice sweet coating on the bread.
We'll say a splash is a tablespoon in this instance.