Spice Up Your Life

Posted on: January 4, 2021

I’m a fan of big flavours and Bulk ‘N’ Bits opens up the spice rack and the pantry to new taste adventures.  Cooking has always been a comfortable area of creativity for me and I’ve taken the concepts of my coffee lovin’ (freshly roasted, ground as needed, and stored well) to my stove top and oven.  I’m buying smaller amounts of spices so they stay fresh and vibrant.  Toasted and then ground with a mortar and pestle from Kitchen Stuff Plus and even simple meals take on layers that you may have missed when using spices from the dusty corners of the drawer.

Turmeric, paprika, and cumin all lend complexity when they haven’t languished forgotten until suddenly they are remembered.

So try that Hungarian mushroom soup recipe and that paprika will shine.  Pair your coconut milk butternut squash soup with a hint of turmeric and let that earthy pigment pop.  Give yourself the gift of tadka (quickly toasted spices in oil which flavours the oil and brightens the spice) to finish off your lentil soup – I tend to use cumin seeds and dried chillies here, the sizzle of the oil as it hits the soup and the crisped cumin seeds delight the senses.

It can get a little hum drum after all these months of cooking most days but trying out new spices or after replacing your several years old ones with fresh ones you’ll find yourself flipping through cookbooks looking for inspiration.  Maybe you were lucky enough to snag one of the limited edition Relish A Crowdsourced Community Cookbook that Cloverdale published in September to raise funds for the Daily Bread Food Bank and found your new favourite dish to highlight your fresh spices.

In an effort to limit trips outside your home Cloverdale still has #allyouneed, you can pick up all your essentials in one go including a stop by Bulk ‘N’ Bits to choose a selection of spices to ‘spice up your life. ’

~ Holly, Guest Services Representative