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You are here: Home / Food / How to decide what spices to add to your recipe

How to decide what spices to add to your recipe

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Food, How-to

Recipes can sometimes be the training wheels of cooking that homemakers never take off.  Don’t get me wrong, I love recipes. But…to be a good cook, you have to learn how to pair flavors on your own.

Just like riding a bike, it’s way more fun (and faster) when you can fly through the kitchen on your own.

Isn’t that one of our near daily frustrations too?  Trying to figure out what’s for dinner, but all of our “simple” recipes call for specific ingredients we don’t have, and we don’t have time for (or just don’t feel like) going to the store?

I learned a super simple and amazingly effective technique to learn what spices to pair with what foods at a cooking class years ago:

  • Put your main ingredients out on the counter.  If you have steaks and asparagus in the fridge, put them on the counter.
  • Put the meat on a plate and unwrap the top so you can see it (yes, raw).  Put the asparagus next to it (or whatever else you have in your fridge).
  • Now grab several spices out of your spice collection that you think might go well with beef and asparagus.

Open each jar, one at a time, and just smell the spice as you’re looking at your main ingredients.

It doesn’t sound like it will work, but once you try it (and practice and practice), you’ll be amazed at what jumps out.  Some flavors that you think will work before-hand, you’ll sniff and immediately put it right back in the drawer, and others will make your mouth water.

Your brain knows what beef and asparagus taste like, so once we give it the visual, it stirs up the senses in a pretty cool way.

If it’s not working for you in the beginning, taste a tiny bit of the spice while looking at the main ingredients.  It will get easier, and you’ll get faster and faster at it.

The more you practice this, the more flavors and smells you’ll begin to notice in food. You’ll not only start learning to cook better, but you’ll be able to make substitutes when you need to without the help of Google, AND you’ll begin to enjoy food more when you’re getting more out of the flavors.

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How to decide what spices to add to your recipe

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3 hours to go. 
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Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challen Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challenge on our dining room (that you guys haven't even seen the "before" of yet). It's a super fun challenge to stay within $100 and makeover a room in a month. We're behind schedule, but there has actually been progress. I'll try to remember to share here, but there's more on the blog! LittleVictorian.com
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@little.victorian

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Finished! (ish) let's just pretend the new mantle Finished! (ish) let's just pretend the new mantle is painted a warm gray. It will be soon. 
It was $94 for the whole thing. 
Swipe for the before. See everything at littlevictorian.com
#100roomchallenge
So we were making great (though last- minute) prog So we were making great (though last- minute) progress. Then we're putting the picture hanger on the DIY art I made for the room when the 80-pound dog comes in and steps STRAIGHT THROUGH THE ARTWORK. 😵 

Hubs is trying to fix it as usual. But seriously...I don't know if any more obstacles could be thrown at us during this challenge. 😂 

3 hours to go. 
#100roomchallenge
Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challen Ugly photo time! We're doing the $100 Room Challenge on our dining room (that you guys haven't even seen the "before" of yet). It's a super fun challenge to stay within $100 and makeover a room in a month. We're behind schedule, but there has actually been progress. I'll try to remember to share here, but there's more on the blog! LittleVictorian.com
#100roomchallenge
Update: the MCM is officially sold! We did eventua Update: the MCM is officially sold! We did eventually finish most of our restoration/renovation projects. I'll share the updates in the coming months as we get settled in to our new place. 😁
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We had three offers the first day, one of whom hadn't even seen the house in person yet.
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@little.victorian

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