Thursday, April 14, 2016

Cooking with Spices

Some of the ingredients for sauce for meatball sandwiches, including several spices in the new jars I bought and filled recently.
My reorganized and expanded spice shelf has made me want to cook with spice. Here are a few of the dishes I've been making:
  • West-Indian curried lamb and vegetables without really following a recipe, but starting here.
  • Mediterranean food: falafel with a Turkish eggplant salad from Claudia Roden's book Mediterranean Cookery.
  • Italian-spiced tomato sauce for meatball sandwiches. No recipe at all, I improvise my tomato sauce.
  • And I'm thinking about South American and more Mediterranean experiments.
Curried lamb with carrots, turnips, and coconut milk; served with fresh fruit and vegetables and plum and mango chutneys.
Spices in the curry: ground ginger, curry powder, allspice berries, cumin,red onion, garlic, and canned jalapeno peppers.
Falafel (from Trader Joe's), a Turkish eggplant salad, and a cabbage salad with tahini dressing.
The whole eggplant was charred at 400° until soft, chopped, and mixed with lemon juice, yogurt, parsley, dill.
Garnishes on the eggplant include black olives, tomatoes, red onion. On the side: pita bread, lemon slices, and yogurt.
Meatballs with spiced tomato sauce on toasted buns with melted cheese.

12 comments:

Jeanie said...

I think I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that they are eating well at Mae's house!

Ana Regalado said...

Hmmmmm Maybe I should check my spices later ! The lamb curry looks very appetizing and I bet tastes delicious but I would love to get my grubby hands on that meatballs sandwich ;D

Beth F said...

Fun! Now I'm inspired to go through my spices and see what wonders I can come up with. That Mediterranean cookbook looks good, I'll have to see if my library has it.

Jackie McGuinness said...

I tend to improvise also. And we love curry lamb and had it a couple of weeks ago. I off to read your post about it.

Alex said...

I love cooking with spices, especially West Indian, Indian and Mediterranean spices. They taste and smell so wonderful. Your dishes look so enticing that I'm glad I chose a nice spicy meal for dinner tonight.

Claudia said...

Looks as though re-organizing the spices has given you some added cooking inspiration. It all looks so good!

Vicki said...

I love Indian food and all the spices, especially curry.

Deb in Hawaii said...

Looks like a tasty week. I love Claudia Roden and her cookbooks--those falafel look delicious. ;-)

(Diane) bookchickdi said...

My guys would love those meatballs.

Debbie Rodgers said...

Interesting that you include sage and cumin in your meatball sauce. I must try that!

Carole said...

Love my spices but need to buy smaller quantities so I don't need to throw so much out! Cheers from Carole's Chatter!

Anonymous said...

Wow I love your spice shelves! Mine are erm all over the place...