As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I invested just under 300 dollars in seasonings and spices. A few years ago I would have thought that was sinful, but it is a continued preparation of necessities for the continuation of life. You eat bland food and you are not going to eat enough, get depressed, and you will die as bad food wears on you.
I did a preliminary investment with TL in cheap spices and seasonings, from things like paprika, poultry seasoning to parsley, but that was not the foundation of my cooking, which preppers never explain, so I will explain what I bought and why.
I cook with 2 seasonings and 6 spices primarily. I actually added Thyme to the list as Stephanie told us that the Quebecois eat allot of split pea soup. I rather disliked it, but I followed a recipe on the bag and it called for thyme Made all the difference in the world, so thyme was added in bulk, because I just knew if I did not get it, I would end up having 500 pounds of peas and nothing to season it with.
So I use canning salt for my salt. It is not as salty as sea salt or other higher grade salt, but it does not have an anti caking agent. When I was very ill to death, that anti caking agent was making me very ill. So I use canning salt which does not have iodine.
The other seasoning is black pepper, COARSE GRIND. I hate fine grind powder as it has not enough flavor. I use coarse mainly for cooking and for grilling meat. No point in having to use twice the pepper to get the same flavor as with coarse grind.
You have been warned. You better have salt and pepper or your lives are going to be miserable in the food will all taste awful.
Now for the spices. I would love to have gotten nutmeg, but I have a budget and have to get what I will use mostly. That means cinnamon. I had some cheap cinnamon which who knows what they put in that shit, as it tastes off. I still have it, but now I have real cinnamon which I use in rolls, pies from apple to pumpkin, to putting it on rice.
For cooking I use a great deal of bay leaves in soups. I was stunned by the amount of them in the bags, but I now have enough bay leaf to last till Jesus returns, and more to the point, instead of a little 5 dollar bag of 20 leaves, I have big ass leaves that are vacuum packed and will be good forever.
For Italian red sauces I have basil and oregano. You can not make chili without that stuff. Oregano is the spice which prevails in what you think as spices, while basil has an almost licorice flavor if used too much, but it is what elevates tomatoes to a new level of flavor.
Lastly I will add SUGAR. Sugar adds so much to Italian sauces and brown sugar adds to holiday treats.
That is it. With the above I can turn anything to amaze people. I do not like using garlic and onion powders as they are horrid, but you need those bulbs for cooking, which is why I grow them.
I enjoy cumin in Louisiana cooking, Cuban and Mexican, but it tastes like a dead Mexican. That is what Mexican all tastes like, cumin. I did not get it on my budget, because it is kind of just there and it is not like I am going to be setting holed up for Wormwood, thinking, "I could use me a burrito about now and I should have got cumin
What I did splurge on, is vanilla beans. Yes I have that petro chemical artificial vanilla, which turns my stomach, but having alcohol and vanilla beans I can make the expensive stuff that is 20 dollars a bottle. So my purchase was cost effective. Vanilla I use in oatmeal, cookies, pancakes, cakes as it is like bacon, you just put it into things and things just taste better.
No I do not have a recipe for Bacon Birthday Cake, but I know poor Southern people put lots of cracklings in things to not starve on corn bread alone. Smoke is sold in the store, but real smoke will add allot to cover up food in it's sins. Smoke makes pork into something you can eat.
I do know what I'm advocating here, and that includes bullion. When I was a kid, my gluttonous old man, who had trick knees and was always dying of a woman's period, dressed out over 350 pounds. With that came gout, then his heart bloated up, then he got diabetes, always had an exotic lung ailment and coughed all the time, but about the time of the heart stuff I was like 9 years old. Of course the mother had to cook for him, which meant that bullshit of NO SALT and of course his drinking a fucking truckload of coffee a day that upset his stomach, we could not eat spicy food as it bothered him.
You try eating squaw cooking every day. Bland shit, no flavor. I had a shit existence and looked to food to make things not so shitty, but this old man's diet fucked all that up, so I dreaded eating. As I said, you get locked into a gulag, and then have to eat tasteless food, no lights or sun, and you are going to find out what the hell depression is. After the old man died, I used to fight like hell with the mother over seasoning and cooking. Her idea of cooking came from that jackass dad I had, whose idea of food was Crisco in a pan, fucking flour coated meat, and then all that fucking grease and tallow cooked out in that mush and burned coating and he slopped that down without breathing. I got one hell of a death corn allergy from that damned grease cooking, got acne, and my gut was always nauseated.That is what I fought the mother over in my cooking. She finally shut her mouth when she found out food did not taste like shit all the time. and if you used the correct seasonings and spices, food was a joy.
She used to be a pretty good cook when I was a kid, but later she sucked the hind tit and then by satan experimented with some good recipe......her favorite slop was Goddamn green beans and Campbels Cream of Mushroom soup. Made that shit all the time, made me sick as that is wall there was to eat.
I'm so glad that woman is dead.
So for your psychological well being, get yourself some spices and seasonings. I love fennel and ....I forget that other thing in pork seasoning, but I have not the budget for everything. If you like something in flavor not on my broad list, then get that spice or seasoning as that is what will help make things easier for you. I'm just telling you what I purchased as that is what I use the majority of time and will use for the majority of cooking.
With that, this is another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Post Script: In the interlude of things being posted a few months ahead, my 300 dollar investment by God, doubled in orders were cancelled, things were not shipped, other things were ordered and then things corporate cancelled appeared here by God's Design in providing for me, for free. Yes God made sure I got again as much for nothing and I did not have a thing to do with this. Stuff just appeared. Some of it took months in between, but it did appear.
Nuff Said
agtG
