Spice Girl (aka Flavor Transferring Lesson Two)

Remember when I talked to you about flavor building? (Well, not talked, but typed.) Now, I want to talk to you about spice layering. It's like flavor building's first cousin twice removed.

Everyone has either a favorite dish or a native dish. It can be the same dish or two different ones. It's also something that's been made several times by several different people and it probably has a standard recipe. Spice layering starts with these dishes, because things that grow together often taste good together and before we had globalization, you had to eat stuff from your 'hood. So, all the things you ate were more or less from one region.

For a class, I did a handout about how to use spices in cooking. As a demonstration, I brought four spices: cinnamon, cardamom, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. I used instant hot chocolate as the base and asked people to sprinkle whatever they liked into their drink with two recommendations, which were cayenne with cinnamon and nutmeg with cardamom. The spices paired with another (hidden) flavor, the cocoa powder, gave the hot chocolate a new spin with no cooking involved. Also, by using spice, you can reduce some of the other ingredients that tend to add extra calories such as full-fat whipped cream, full fat milk or added sugar, because the flavor is so potent.

Spice layering is akin to listening to a good song on your i-pod, and loving it over and over. But, then you hear that song in concert in a specially designed acoustic hall with live musicians and instruments. Your ears get the full range of the music that ear buds CANNOT produce. Spices work that way. One note leads, and you love it, but the really beauty is combining it with other foods and spices to get the full effect.

Science can be really tasty AND analogous AND musical.

PS...I Love You

I read a Weight Watcher article about 7 Ways to Eat Smarter. The first tip was to sneak veggies into your dishes. I was all, "I do that already! That's great! But why is it sneaking?!?"

Theory: we shy away from vegetables for so many socially primed reason we don't even realize how awesome they can be.

This is where I will yap about salad PS..I Love You.

Pasta Salad: The Next Generation.

Yesterday I did a "cabbage in the straw" quick fix. Cabbage in the straw is a 30-min meal recipe from Rachael Ray. Basically I matched thin whole wheat spaghetti up with shredded green cabbage. I paid just 1.59 for the cabbage, which is 3x as much as I paid for the pasta.

Yup. I paid 39 cents for the pasta. Coupons baby!

The point is...aside from bragging...pasta and vegetables come in such a large variety and many of them are very, very, very cheap. Or, can be made very, very affordable. If a box of pasta costs let's say 2 bucks. Eventually it goes on sale because of it's shelf life (gotta clear inventory) or you have a coupon. Now, it's affordable. It's very, very, very affordable when you stretch out an 7-8 cup serving box of pasta with vegetables.

So, back to dinner: I took one of my splurgers, pesto, and added it to my quick fix. You can can also stretch out pesto with a ubiquitous item, chicken stock. So, literally my dinner costs me under $2 a serving. Maybe 3 when you add the pesto.

What is also great about pasta salad is that you can flavor transfer, so you're not eating the same ol' salad. You can match like shapes with like with like such as thin spaghetti with shredded cabbage, floret vegetables (broccoli or cauliflower) with elbow noodles (macaroni), spherical with spherical (gemelli w/ beans). Or, jsut go against the grain and mix it all up. You really have a great tabula rasa with pasta salads. You can get gluten free mixes or whole grain if you don't do white starch or looking to up your nutritional profile.

Go where no man has gone before people. Yes, I made a star trek reference. Shush and make me a salad.

Throw it in a bag!

Plastic zip-loc bags are a must. Again, not eco-friendly, but if you're trying to eat healthily but at work for hours, pressed for time or trying to dismantle a bomb, you may not have the time to cook a meal.

So, just throw it in a bag.

If you haven't read my entry about flavor building, shame! Read it! Basically, take the main components of a favorite high-calorie meal and transfer it to a lower-calorie dish. Then, put that dish in a bag.

I was talking with my Neg, and this idea came to me when I suggested she make her own granola. Basically, take a high protein bran-like cereal, freeze-dried or dried fruit, roasted lightly salted nuts, and a bit of spice for added flavor, and you've got portable granola. Kind of like making your own chex mix.

Salads are also easy tho throw in a bag, and you're not limited leaf based. I've bagged mixes using broccoli slaw and pasta. Rice could work as well. I also like squirting a bit of lemon (acid!!!) on my salads, fruit salads in particular. Lemon juice is an excellent alternative to salad dressing, doesn't add extra calories, adds vitamin C and keeps produce bright (retards oxidation)

Obviously, there are things you should avoid bagging: usually liquids, cut tomatoes, things that need heavy refrigeration. But, I've found that if I take a smaller bag or, tiny container, I can bag that stuff in my plastic bag. Things that need cold are often bagged with a mini-ice pack to keep them cold.

Foodprint - Flavor Transfering Lesson One

I want to talk to you about flavor transferring.

Flavor transferring, well what I call "flavor transferring", is taking a combination of food and spices and either adapting it to a method or translating it into a dish.

It's one of the many ideas that helps me maintain my weight. I identify what I like about a food and then try to either make my own version at home, which is lower in fat because I'm controlling the ingredients, or I make a new dish out of a favorite by incorporating new flavors. (Like when I cheat on my PB&J sandwich.)

When I think about what I eat, I kind of categorize it into meals. These are the categories:

casseroles
salad
starch & meat
cereal/grains
sandwich
soups
quick breads and cakes
veggies & fruit sides

There's no hard rule to this list. You could add tons more categories, but I feel like this encompasses pretty much all the food I eat. Thinking about the food in categories allows me to think what flavors I'd like to transfer from one dish to another.

Here's how this works: take the one category of food, such as a sandwich, and insert it into another, like a salad.

Example: Pizza. Okay, so pizza isn't technically a sandwich, but it has the basic idea of a sandwich, just stay with me..

Pizza is basically bread, cheese, tomato sauce and toppings. To "flavor transfer" pizza into a salad, take the cheese, toppings, spices and "remove" the sauce. Make yourself some whole wheat pasta, toss it with cheese and toppings. Add a good quality oil for flavor and heart healthy fat, then top it off with a pinch of Parmesan cheese for extra flavor. Real Parmesan. Not the can, I love the can, it's cute and small, but it's not the real thing!


Not only have you used the flavors of a pizza to make a "new" dish for yourself, you were hopefully smart enough to add in veggies with your favorite toppings. This flavor transfer also doubles as a pasta salad (see, it's a salad, but a pasta salad) when served cold.

Now, go forth and transfer!