Spicing Things Up

My diet is a bit on the boring side, I guess. I pretty much saute vegetables and eat them with rice for most of my dinner-time meals. Not the most thrilling food in the world, but I like it anyway. I decided I needed to spice things up a bit and get some special seasonings to make my sauteed vegetables taste different from day to day. For that, I made a trip to my favorite place for spices: The Spice House in Evanston.

If you like to cook at all, or need help just making your cooking taste good without measuring out spices or guessing which spices to put in, this is the best place to go. I've been going for there for about two years stocking up on lots of different spices for my meats, vegetables, and fruits. Part of the reason for the trip was that I was out of my favorite: Lavendar Vanilla Sugar!

The loot yesterday was pretty good. I got a new extra large container of lavendar vanilla sugar and some other spices for my husband and I to use. Here's the awesome stuff I picked up:

• Lavendar Vanilla Sugar: pretty self-explanatory here. It tastes awesome on anything sweet or in tea or on pretty much anything. I use it all the time in my baking.
• Sunny Paris Seasoning: freeze-dried shallots, ground Mysore green peppercorns, dill weed, freeze-dried scallions, French basil, French tarragon, French chervil, finely minced parsley flakes, and ground Muntok white pepper
• Ruth Ann's Muskego Avenue Seasoning: Kosher flake salt, Tellicherry pepper, green peppercorns, lemon peel, white onion, or minced green onions
• Pasta Sprinkle: California and French basil, Greek fancy oregano, minced garlic, and French thyme
• Back of the Yard Garlic Pepper Butcher's Rub: Tellicherry black pepper, garlic, Kosher flake salt, sugar, red bell peppers, shallots, parsley
• Vulcan's Fire Salt: Salt, Louisiana Chile Mash, Garlic, Habanero Chile, Shallots, Tellicherry Pepper, Lime Peel, Pimenton de La Vera, Picane, Cumin, allspice and Vinegar

Needless to say, the last two were for my hubby. Not quite my cup of tea the peppery, spicy stuff.

Just for a quick perspective on how much I love The Spice House, here are all of the other spices I own (an highly recommend).

• Pepper Lemon Seasoning
• Milwaukee Ave Steak Seasoning
• Spicy Cajun Style Seasoning
• Old World Central St Seasoning
• Maple Sugar, Granulated
• Pilsen Latino Seasoning
• Rocky Mountain Seasoning (makes the best meatballs ever, as a side note)
• Gateway to the North Maple Sugar Seasoning
• Chip Dip Seasoning

I have included a link to their website if you want to check out all of the tasty goodness. I'm looking forward to using my new spices to help me continue along with the gallbladder diet, and hopefully avoid complete culinary boredom!