The spice rack

After remodeling our kitchen five years ago I became more interested in cooking and baking.  Our old kitchen was a nightmare and needless to say I didn't cook very much.

My sister Michele remodeled her kitchen around the same time we did, so we both decided we would each take a cookbook our favorites were Rachel Ray and Giada de Laurentiis and take turns cooking once a week from the cookbooks (my sister lives 5 streets away.)

In doing so we realized we didn't have much in the way of spices.  Our mainstays were steak seasoning and garlic salt and that was about it.  Both of our celeb chefs required we add to our spice racks.  Below is a good list of staples to have on hand.

Curry powder

Cumin

Whole vanilla beans

Chile powder

Italian seasoning

Whole peppercorns (grinding your own is always best)

Ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger

Whole nutmeg

Red pepper flakes

Oregano
Thyme

Bay leaves

Kosher and or sea salt

Paprika

Thanks to my new kitchen and cooking with my sister, I now have a very full and abundant spice rack.  However...the other day a bottle of honey tipped over leaving a very sticky mess.  Needless to say, I had to clean out the cupboard and in doing so realized I had some seriously old spices in the rack.  My thought was..."do spices go bad?"  The answer in a nutshell is they don't really go bad, but they can loose their flavor and potency over time.  McCormick has a great list of various forms of spices and how to keep them fresh as well as how to tell if they are still worth keeping.

You can really turn up the volume in your meals just by adding a little more spice and with that said, I'm off to browse through Pinterest for something to cook for dinner :)

Have a great Wednesday.

Apryl