General Cooking Tips


Using Seasonings and Spices

• Seasonings and spices are especially important when it comes to basic food storage.

• Beef, chicken, or ham bouillon granules are excellent secondary storage items. Wheat and rice, either brown or white, cooked in bouillon take on wonderful new flavors, as does barley. Bouillon is an excellent base for many soups, sauces, and casseroles.

• Soy sauce, with its oriental flavor, is another excellent seasoning. It enhances the flavor of fried wheat or rice with fresh vegetables and sprouts. It also adds good flavor to a stir-fry or even to some stews or chicken or fish dishes.

• Legumes (peas, beans, soybeans, lentils) respond well to seasoning salts and spice blends like chili powder, curry powder, poultry seasoning, and celery, garlic, and onion salts.

• It is important to keep some "sweet" spices on hand, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and allspice. Simple rice pudding, for example, is dependent on such spices for its unique flavor. These spices can also enhance the simplest cookies and cakes.

• Cocoa, sweet cocoa mix, or a cereal drink like Postum are good supplementary items to store along with basic nonfat dry milk. Punch powder is a welcome flavor in lean times. Vanilla, almond, lemon, or maple extract are useful in making pancake syrup.

• Try cutting the sugar by ½ the amount called for in a recipe and replacing the sugar with potato flakes (potato pearls canned at the cannery will not work). If you do this with cookies, however, they will not brown as well. In chocolate chip cookies, use all of the brown sugar called for in the recipe, but replace the granulated sugar. This also works well with oatmeal cookies, applesauce cookies, and brownies.

• A year's supply of flavorings your family enjoys could make the difference between stark and satisfying eating.