Monday, June 7, 2010

Day 268: Spicey (Taken 6/6/10)


Have to say I love my spice rack.  It sits near the stove, however.  No, you spice fanatics, not close enough to destroy the spice, but close enough that they get kind of greasy over time.  The counters I'm cleaning daily, so the grease doesn't gather.  The spice rack gets forgotten.

Let me say that it took an AGE to clean every jar, refill empty ones, and sort out the spices that don't fit in the rack that are in the cupboard.


The deal is that the spice rack came with really, really nice spices in the jars.  Each jar has an airtight cap underneath the lid.  Great, right?  But what about spices that I have no use for?  I mean, I have a huge patch of chives in the garden, what do you do with dried chives? 

And fennel?  What the heck does a person do with fennel?  It smells divine, but I've never had it in my life, except, I think, in an East Indian restaurant as part of the nummy little spoonful of fennel-y anise mix that they give in place of after dinner mints.  And maybe there's fennel in a type of pickle I had once.  Dunno.

But I digress.  Fennel:


And caraway.  There must be something to do with this.  I know I've heard of caraway in cookies, maybe?  Again, the smell--I want to dab it behind my ears.  Yum. 


So.  My goal is to figure out how to use fennel and caraway. 

Do you guys use these two spices in this whole form?  Any recipes I should try out?

This weekend I'm going to use these.  In something.  Any tips would be helpful!

3 comments:

Madam Crunchypants said...

I have a recipe for caraway cookies. Like a ginger snap. Delicious.

I have a few recipes for using fennel too, but would have to dig them out...

email me - (it's long-lost Jo from PG, for what it's worth)

kathryn said...

Huh. Caraway seeds behind the ears...now that's an interesting thought!

Advice from someone who simply cannot cook: Google the herb. I can't believe you won't find tons of wonderful recipes. I'll eat vicariously through you.

Lynn said...

Hey long-lost Jo! I'll send an email right away. Thinking about firing up the oven to warm it up in here. It's freezing today!

Kathryn: That's true, and what I usually would do,. But I figure tried and true is better than try and cross your fingers!