Sunday, December 7, 2008

Up My Sleeve ...


My favorite secret ingredients:
  1. Umeboshi vinegar (Made from salted, pickled plums. Very popular with macrobiotic cooking - intensely sour, intensely salty. Use a little for vinagrettes, rice, all sorts of things.).
  2. Canned pumpkin. (I use in all sorts of pancakes, waffles, baked goods. It adds a ton of nutrition and great color and usually gets by the minicritics as long as I don't overdo.)
  3. Ground flaxseed. (Ups the nutritional value of whatever I'm cooking, and has a kind of nice nutty flavor.)
  4. Ground green chile powder. (But I got mine on a visit to New Mexico at a farmers' market, and dangit I'm almost out.)
  5. Ground ginger. (Nearly always substitute for cinnamon if appropriate.)
  6. Dried orange or lemon peel. (Many things benefit from this!)
  7. Dark chocolate everything: cocoa powder, chips, chopped, whatever. (Milk chocolate wastes my time, flavorwise.)
  8. Olive oil. (I use it for just about everything that calls for a liquid fat, except high-heat sautees and the like, which do better with grapeseed oil.)

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