Recipes — Whole Spices

The rainy days are upon us and how best to enjoy it than with a warm bowl of a hearty and filling soup? This black lentil soup is very easy to prepare, tasty, and you can add your leftover meats to enhance the flavor or keep it vegetarian-friendly. Or make it vegan by replacing butter with a plant-based fat of your choice. The cumin and black pepper adds a nice kick to the dish while the cilantro, celery, onions and carrots keep it light and fresh. I like to use dried black beans to this recipe but you can also...

Christmas Eve, chilly afternoons, or when you’re feeling blue… any excuse is a good excuse to enjoy a hot cup of chocolate. Satisfying and warming, hot chocolate is always good when made with real chocolate, and even better when spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. Both nutmeg and cinnamon have comforting flavor profiles that tend to bring memories of special events and holiday meals, making them ideal for Christmas. In this recipe, we’re giving classic hot chocolate an aromatic flavor boost with these two festive spices. Sweet spices have long starred in hot drinks for thousands of years across Mexico--the motherland...

Nutmeg is a mild spice typically used in baking for its warm, nutty and slightly sweet flavor. Because of its popularity, it can be used in many different cuisines and applications. There’s more to this spice than meets the eye. Do you know that nutmeg was one of the most expensive spices in Medieval Europe? The reason was that it came all the way from the other side of the world. I’ve learned to appreciate and put more value on this particular spice as it actually takes seven to nine years to harvest this spice from the day it was...