Spicing Up Your Food Storage

“Spicing it up” is important, especially when you’re cooking with basic food storage items. So once you acquire grains, legumes, nonfat dry milk, sugar, oil, and salt, start gathering a year’s supply of spices and flavorings.

Beef, chicken, or ham bouillon granules or cubes are excellent secondary storage items. Rice takes on wonderful new flavors when cooked in bouillon, as does barley and even some wheat dishes. Bouillon is also a base for many soups, sauces, and casseroles.

Soy sauce is another excellent flavoring to store. It adds saltiness to stir-fry vegetables and fried rice, as well as to some stews, chicken, and fish. Other flavor enhancers for main dishes include red and black pepper, paprika, turmeric, vinegar, dry or prepared mustard, Tabasco sauce and Worcestershire sauce.

Aromatic herbs like marjoram, thyme, oregano, dill, basil, and sage can lift soups, casseroles, salads, and sauces out of the ordinary. Seasoning salts and spice blends like chili powder, curry powder, poultry seasoning, and celery, garlic, and onion salts make legumes tastier.

The aromatic seeds—anise, caraway, celery, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, poppy, and sesame seeds—are especially good sprinkled over home-baked breads and rolls and stirred into salad dressings.

While you probably have some “sweet” spices on hand—cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, allspice, and mace—you may want to store a wider variety. Although “sweet” spices are not actually sweet, because of their flavor association with sweet dishes, they give a sweetening effect to breads, puddings, and cereals, even when no sugar is added. Simple rice pudding, for example, is dependent on such spices for its flavor. And you can enhance the simplest cookies and cakes with these favorite flavors. Vanilla, almond, lemon, and maple extracts are also good for storing.

To supplement nonfat dry milk, store cocoa, sweet cocoa mix, or a cereal drink. Punch powder flavors not only water, but also puddings and pie fillings.

Note: For long-term storage, keep unopened boxes, cans, or jars of spices and herbs in a closed plastic container or bag and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Once spices are opened, keep them sealed in a second container to maintain their flavor and aroma.—Josephine Newton, West Jordan, Utah

Photography by Craig Dimond