Healthy Cooking With Spice Ingredients for the Whole Family

Video Transcript

" Hi I'm Linda Leon with expertvillage.com. Now when you are power cooking, we've already discussed that you have to have good staples on hand in your pantry. Next thing you want to do is work on your other types of seasonings, which are your spices; and you can use fresh spices and herbs if you choose, but even if don't have those on hand, you always want to keep a good supply of lots of spices and lots of seasonings to do your power cooking. Because what happens is if they are readily available, you'll use them. You would be amazed on how many recipes you can come up with with just these basic things that I'm going to show you today. First I'm going to start with liquid seasonings, which I always keep on hand. I like to keep a product on hand called liquid smoke. Liquid smoke is good for practically anything that you like to do. If you like a hickory taste or a mesquite taste to your food, you can put this in practice, the use of liquid smoke. Next you always want to have on hand Worcestershire, and the reason for this is because it is a wonderful seasoning and it is very versatile. A lot of people use it for meat products, but it has a lot of versatility outside of meat. So you want to keep a bottle of that on hand, and the same thing with a good steak sauce, it is not just for steaks it is for seasoning all kinds of ingredients. Last for your liquid seasoning, it is good to have bottle of some type of balsamic vinegar, because this is what you can use for a base for salad dressing if you make your own salad dressing. Next is what we are going to do is talk about the type of seasonings that you would need on your rack. Now this is my spice rack. What I like to do in my spice rack is classify my spices so that they are easy to find. So if we start here I have things that are related to like a Asian influence: I have minced onions, garlic, ginger, and then I have things related to ginger like cinnamon, and nutmeg. After that I begin to have my spices based on ethnic foods groups. So I have a Cajun influence here, with some chicken style seasoning with a Cajun influence. I have Italian seasonings put together, and then I have Spanish seasonings mixed with the Italian seasonings, because they are similar. So there is my adobo. Next I have Greek seasonings, and after that I have different types of things mixed together with just about anything like bacon bits. Following that I have my Mexican seasonings, which are my chili powder, my mesquite powder and then it goes back into your onions and your garlic. So if sort your seasonings in this way, then when you get ready to cook, it's like “what flavors do I want today for what type of food.” If I want Asian, I would just spin to my Asian side of my wheel and grab these ingredients. If I want Mexican, I spin to my Mexican side of the wheel, pull these ingredients and I got it. So my primary spices go on the top rack. My secondary spices go on the bottom rack. Now secondary spices include things that you don't have to use everyday but they are good to have on hand. For example a chicken bouillon, some type of chicken base; most of the time I like to use the imitation chicken bases. Sage, which is a very good spice to have on hand. A blackening seasoning for all kinds of things that you can make with this, and your crushed red pepper, rosemary, and then your flavoring such as your vanilla, or your butter flavor, or your almond flavor. Finally I have some cloves. So with all these type of spices on hand you are able to prepare a wonderful dish. You know where your seasonings are, because you have organized them on some type of a rack. If you don't have a rack, you can put them in your cabinet and away, but you are easily able to find them. This is basic to power cooking. Now you might say I don't have all those seasonings right now... well that is fine; just start off with a few of your favorites. If you like Italian food, begin to build up your Italian list. If you like Mexican food, begin to build up that, but I guarantee if you have your pantry items ready, and you have your seasonings available and your liquid seasonings available, you can make any dish on the spot and have a fantastic meal during your day. I'm Linda Leon with expertvillage.com."