Nervous Nesting: How to Fail at Life While Attempting Snow-Bound Anxiety-Induced Nesting Activities

(2/18/14)
This morning, I was supposed to drive to Indiana to see my mother in her rehab/nursing home (she just had her hip replaced on Tuesday and I have no cuticles left after the ups and downs of this week), however God smote Chicago again with another 6-7" of snow. Therefore, I've stayed in today and attempted to clean the apartment (fail), file desk shit (success!), finish one fucking DIY/craft project (75% success), make red lentil soup (success!), straighten the craft space (success!), and do the litter boxes (fail).


This is what I made. Well, 75% made. I need three more rows, but still...Are you jealous? Because you should be.

There's a few things I want to say before I go off and show you how to make one of these on your own. First, I received a gift from my boyfriend's aunt for Christmas. It was a baker's kit from the Spice House. If you know anything about me, it's that I looooooooove to cook. I grew up loving to bake, and now I'm getting better at "winging it" and not following directions out of a book or doing exact measurements either. Nonetheless, I still love to bake. So I got this: The Baker's Spices 4-Jar Gift Set. Tossed in with the set were some dried bay leaves, whole cinnamon sticks, whole nutmeg, and dried ginger. I only figured out what the nutmeg was by smelling it and confirming online, and since I was low on nutmeg, I used my microplane to shave them down. This was on the inside. 

"HOW PRETTY AM I?"

Seriously, just LOOK at the inside of that!

"NO, SERIOUSLY. I AM SOOOO PRETTY. LOOOOOOOOOK AT ME."

It was so pretty and smelled so fresh and not stale, so I've decided I need to use fresher spices and blends for a number of reasons. (1) Because spices are how I am determined to give my food flavor without butter and salt and sugar. (Or with less of it.) And ultimately how I'm going to have the hottest bod EVER by the end of August (when I do the triathlon). (2) Because I'm always looking to learn about cooking while saving money. (3) Because I refuse to spend a stupid amount of money on going out to eat all the time when I can make better shit at home for cheaper. But then again, I go out to eat to avoid dishes and cleaning. Not for the food 90% of the time.
So I started my homemade spice rack a long time ago when I saw this fancy one online for $98.47. It could cost more, if you're a complete moron....don't believe me? OH MY GOD THIS IS HIGHWAY ROBBERY! 

If you're buying this for $100, I have some land in Florida I'd like to sell you.

And I thought, "FUCK. THAT IS PRICEY. I have a drill. I have a brain. I can make that FOR SURE for cheaper." So I did.
But first, before you go bonkers doing everything I write below, here's a few things I didn't know and some things you should know.
1. There are really only about 10 spices that American culture uses. If you're Irish/English/German/Norweigan like me, we consider "salt and pepper" to be the only real spices we use in 98% of our cooking. Reach a little bit outside your "American roots" and see what other spices there are.
2. Once you do, you will realize that there are some really rare spices out there. Aside from those, there are about 10 more spices that the other cultures use. 

I suggest the following list to get you started if you have no spices:

Boring "American" Shit:

• sea salt

• black pepper (whole if you have a grinder)If you're Irish, like my family, you stop there.

• red chili pepper flakes

• cinnamon (powdered and sticks)

• paprika

• cayenne pepper (which is dried red pepper, ground up)
  The EYE-talian spices come next....

• oregano

• basil*

• parsley*

• sage*

• rosemary*

• thyme 
  (and if you just read those last four in a row, you now have this song stuck in your head. YOU'RE WELCOME.)

• dill*

• Soup spices follow:

• bay leaves

• tarragon

• marjoram

• white pepper

• celery seed

"Ethnic" Spices (Ethnic If You Live Under a Rock or Say Ridiculous things like "Oriental People" and "EYE-talian")

• cumin (seed and/or powder)

• coriander (this is the seed of cilantro)

• turmeric

• mustard

• saffron$$$$

• ....I am tired and can't think of anymore, but I'm sure I will.....

$$$$ Saffron is expensive. Like, LEGIT FIRST BORN-CHILD EXPENSIVE. For 1 gram, it's $15. ONE GRAM. There are 28 grams in an ounce. And 16 ounces in a pound. But if you ever did cocaine in the 80s, I'm sure this isn't news to you. To boring people like me, this was.



* I prefer cooking with this fresh, but dried is a decent back-up but FAR less potent. Ones that you should ONLY use fresh, in my opinion, are cilantro, rosemary, and parsley. Cilantro and parsley are stupid cheap, so don't be a lazy ass. Use fresh.

I won't go into extracts, bc we'd be here all day and I'm already boring myself.

A lot of things are just ground up versions of the seeds, so get yo'self a coffee grinder and grind up some of that shit and save yourself a gazillion dollars. Cumin seed in the grinder for a bit = cumin powder. Duh. And I got about 3 lbs of cumin seed at my local Indian grocery store for around $4. Previously, I bought a quarter of an ounce for $4. Because those goddamn red-top McCormick spice bottles always seemed so damn fancy to me as a broke kid raised in Indiana.

BUT now I have a ton of cumin seed AND cumin powder for the next two years. Why 2 years? Because spices go bad after about that long, so I may not need to buy cumin for a while, but I will NEVER spend $4 on a quarter ounce of ground cumin again.

3. Sometimes you think something is a spice and it's really just a spice blend. At first, I felt like I'd been lied to all my life, but then I realized I could just make these on my own and really "stick it to the man" that way. I mean, Pumpkin Pie Spice is obviously a blend, and if you didn't know that, then this blog can only take you so far in life, my friend. If you did know that, read on geniuses!

Here are some sneaky ones you need to STOP BUYING IN BLENDED FORM and just make your own without all that anti-caking chemical bullshit in there, mmmmmkay? Mmmmmkay. 

• Pumpkin Pie Spice (DUH)
• Taco Seasoning (DUH)
• Creole Seasoning (DUH)
• Chili Powder (YES, THAT IS A BLEND)
• Garam Masala (REALLY? YES.)
• Montreal Steak Seasoning (DUH)
• Curry Powder (YES, THAT IS A BLEND)
• Italian Seasoning (DUH)
• Seasoned Salt (IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS IS A BLEND, THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU.)
• Herbs de Provence

Most of them are here, and she gives lots of instructions and uses an herbal source I also use (Mountain Herbs), so I trust her. 

...and make blends and stop buying blends for stupid prices with gross fillers.

SO if you want to includes some herb blends, then you might want to buy more containers than I did, but you probably won't need too many sheets/tins/etc. 
This project is cheap and simple, and, sure you could buy fancy shit, but I'm not a fancy girl, and I'm getting along well with what I got so far. I will say, don't get rid of your cinnamon shaker. Leave some in there if you use it a lot. Same for other fine spices that don't "sprinkle well" if you use your fingers. Just trust me. 


ON TO THE DIY STUFF!

Things you'll need:

• A sheet of metal at a hardware store for abt $4. Mine is around 18" by 24." It's NOT brushed metal. It's not fancy. It might already have some rust on it. I DON'T CARE. IF you do, then buy something to coat the damn thing. Figure that shiz out elsewhere. I went low on the stress on this one.

• Double-sided flat rubber magnets (I got mine at American Science & Surplus for abt $3.50 for a pack of 10 here). PLUS, the openings look like Kermit-T-Frog eyes!

• 20-30 2.5-oz plastic-lidded tin containers online ($.72 each from www.specialtybottle.com). You can also use glass jars with metal lids, but I don't know how strong your magnets need to be then.

• Get some stickers or labels. I used tiny round stickers on the back and wrote the name and expiration date.

• An electric drill that can drill through metal.

• 4 Nails or screws (and a hammer or screwdriver)

• A marker or Sharpie.

1. Using the Sharpie, mark the four corners about an inch in from the corner with a small dot.
2. Drill a hole through the dot.
3. Hammer a nail or screw in a screw through the holes into the wall. Make sure it's even. (Use a level or a friend who doesn't have polio.)
4. Empty all your spices into the clear-lidded containers, and place labels with their names and expiration dates on the back. (I used labels that were small so I could go over them or easily remove them when they need to be replaced).
5. Make sure the lids fit tightly.
6. Arrange magnets in rows on the metal board.
7. Sick tins to magnets.

TA-FUCKING-DA!
YOU'RE DONE!