Fun idea for a thread. LOVE nutmeg. It's so versatile and I love how it smells. it works well with savory foods, desserts, drinks, breakfast foods, etc. My favorite trick is to add a bit to the ricotta when I am making Italian dishes.

My least favorite, tarragon, makes me nauseous.

Nutmegâ¦including the name.

Tarragon is a herb, btw, rather than a spice. I love tarragon, esp. with chicken.

This post was edited by Tibbrix on Wed, Nov 19, 14 at 9:18

This is a tough one-- as my preferred spices and herbs depend very much on the dish and other ingredients.

The one I use most universally is probably cayenne. I put it in everything-- eggs, tomato sauce, on a baked sweet potato.

My least favorites are cumin, nutmeg and cardamon. I like them and use them but only with a light hand and balanced with other spices.

Love most fresh herbs-- tarragon, oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil, thai basil, cilantro, sage. Now that the weather has gone cold, I'll likely make a pot of my favorite rosemary shallot beef stew soon.

At the moment, cinnamon. I put it on my oatmeal, sprinkled on my latte, in a "healthy" baked apples recipe I often use, etc. Apparently cinnamon is good for your blood sugar and I have also heard it curbs your appetite? I should sprinkle it on EVERYTHING.

My favorite has to be cayenne. I use it in many dishes.

I use White Pepper a lot. I use it mostly in potato dishes and corn dishes. New favorite is Smoked Paprika!

Sue - if you are using a lot of cinnamon, you should make sure to buy Ceylon cinnamon rather than Cassia cinnamon, which is the one commonly sold in the grocery store. Consuming a lot of cassia cinnamon is not good for your liver. I was adding lots of cinnamon to my coffee each morning thinking it was so good for me until I read about this. My local health food store stocks Ceylon cinnamon. It has a milder flavor.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cinnamon

Cinnamon, without a doubt. If a recipe calls for a tsp, I use 2. Most of the time anyway as I know you can overdo anything. I'll have to look for the Ceylon cinnamon. Didn't realize it ws different from 'Saigon' cinnamon. Also love nutmeg, rosemary, cilantro and white pepper.

I use pumpkin spice a lot (which is really a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice & ginger). White pepper a lot (thanks, Mom). Cumin a lot, too -- lots of chili & texmex food.

My LEAST favorite spice is Beaumonde. Which I guess is really a seasoning blend. Haven't had it or seen it since I was little (thanks, Mom!) but didn't like it at the time!

Freshly ground nutmeg. I love the smell, and love the taste. It is particularly good in a fabulous puffed French toast recipe I make once or twice a year.

Roasted chipolte pepper powder...adds a nice "smoky" note without burning your mouth!

Probably cinnamon at the moment.

I love pretty much all herbs too. Been using dill on everything lately.

Cardamom and nutmeg. Freshly ground nutmeg on french toast is wonderful!

Gail, thanks for the heads up...I actually was just reading about that this morning after I googled cinnamon to see if I was making up the stuff about lowering blood sugar or not.

I also really like this crazy mixed-up salt -- does that count as a "spice"? I don't use a lot of salt but when I do want to salt, say, a baked potato, this is what I like.

Here is a link that might be useful: crazy mixed-up salt

This is like asking a parent to name their favorite child. I can't do it. I can say the spices I replace frequently are curry, cumin, and cinnamon.

The last time I used cardamom I ended up with a migraine. I don't blame the spice but in my hyper aware migraine state the fragrance was overwhelming and made me feel sick(er). I can still hardly bring myself to use it.

I don't like nutmeg. When I was first married and new to cooking, I made a recipe from the newspaper. Due to a misprint, it called for way, way too much nutmeg and way, way too little flour. I was new to cooking and didn't know the amounts were crazy wrong. The dish was awful and really turned me against nutmeg. To this day, if I tell my husband a dish is suppose to have nutmeg he knows to reply "we hate nutmeg", as if he has any idea what nutmeg is. He might love it but he's never going to get it when I'm the one doing the cooking.

I did learn to hold off on making any newspaper recipe for a few days in case they ran a correction. I also have 20 years of cooking experience now and have a better idea of reasonable ingredient amounts and what can be substituted, added, or deleted.

I love a lot of herbs and spices, but I have a couple favorites. Nutmeg is hands down my favorite spice though black pepper is a close runner up, and it's a tie between thyme and dill for my favorite herb.

Sue, I LOVE Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt! My salad dressing is EVOO, Lemon Juice, and Jane's. I've long heard that cinnamon helps control blood sugar but that it is toxic to the liver. Of course, that is in large doses, which is no doubt what you need to control the blood sugar!

Favorite smelling spice is cloves.

Favorite seasoning is kosher salt.

Love rosemary, dill and thyme.

A few years ago, I was in ikea with the bf. He wandered off and when I finally spotted him, he was walking towards me with a huge cinnamon bun.. "for my diabetes," he said. I am still shaking my head lol.

I have a saigon cinnamon that I like quite a bit. I find it is stronger but has a softer "touch".

I can be a bit obnoxious with pepper-- usually fresh cracked but i have a veggie pepper mix I like too.

I was just lamenting my spice storage last night. A kitchen remodel is probably a year off at this point. I gotta find a good short-term solution-- but that's a different post.

Another Jane's crazy mixed up salt lover here too (and have you tried the pepper? also pretty good). On almost any veggies, tomatoes, salad, etc. Just the right amount of salt to sprinkle plus the herbs is delightful. I don't salt much either but Jane's is just right.

will have to look for the crazy mixed up salt.

A shoe organizer hanging on the back of my pantry door holds a lot of my stuff, including spices.

Ooh that is a good idea Violet. I'm going to try that. I'm always digging around in my cupboard for spices, totally unorganized. Thanks for that.

I just received a cumin cinnamon salt as a gift and I can't wait to use it but I can't decide WHAT to use it on. So far ideas have been pork roast and sweet potatoes. It smells heavenly!

That would be good for chicken, I think. Sauteed with some fresh garlic. I have a recipe that I kind of forgot about but it's one of those 40-cloves of garlic chicken recipes and it's got cinnamon and it is so delicious.

Turmeric, especially for the health benefits

Saffron.

"Straight spice:" smokey paprika;
Salt: truffle salt;
Mix: Penzy's Tsardust Memories (mmmmm.... on a buttery sweet potato!)

I also love chipotle powder-it's nice to be able to control the heat!

"Straight spice:" smokey paprika;
Salt: truffle salt;
Mix: Penzy's Tsardust Memories (mmmmm.... on a buttery sweet potato!)

I also love chipotle powder-it's nice to be able to control the heat!

Oops! Is there a way to delete a post?

I love to cook and love my spices and herbs so much that I have a spice drawer and then a cab above it to hold them all. My favorite spices are probably cinnamon and cumin. Fresh herbs: cilantro and basil.

BTW, did you know that adding a small amount of cinnamon when you're making something chocolate will give the chocolate a more rich flavor? If you can gauge it right (for example, one level teaspoon to the batter for a double layer chocolate cake), you won't taste the cinnamon, but it will definitely enhance the chocolate.
Lynn.

Oh, I forgot about chipotle powder. Love the stuff! I have a friend who's brother lives in Hatch NM. Every time she visits, she brings me a huge bag of hatch jalapeno powder. I think we'll never get through all of it but DH sprinkles it on everything.

I finally organized by spice drawer last year:

Ooooh, and Hatch is the best place in the world for green and red chile . . . Love it! Their dried red chile powder, fresh green chiles, canned green chiles and red chile ristras are all wonderful. I use Hatch chiles almost exclusively when I cook. And, just for the record, my spelling is correct (LOL): it's chile with an "e", not an "i".
Lynn

Hatch is in my area, too. They have an annual chile festival, but it's usually too hot for me. The weather, that is.

Cannot eat jalapenos at all, but green chiles are my favorite, if not too hot.

I will be looking for the crazy mixed up salt. Like the sound of smoky paprika and chipotle powder, I must try them.

Ginger -- in chicken soup and banana bread and marinades of all sorts and varieties .....

Cinnamon, nutmeg (for eggnog at this time of year!) cloves ....

When this post first came up, my thought was how can I choose? I grow many of my own herbs and like my food seasoned well. But, then it dawned on me, there is no doubt, ginger it is.

Most of the time, spices/seasonings are tied to my mood. It is a good thing that Penzey's is not in the area. DH did tell me that there is a spice shop in Santa Fe and I really should go check it out soon.

I know garlic is neither but garlic is my favourite flavouring. I have begun to add a little salt to my cooking after avoiding it for years and have realized that it really does enhance the flavours of other herbs and spices.

I don;t like cilantro but do use cumin, spanish paprika and oregano.

Tarragon

Tish, this thread has spurred me to go to Penzey's for the first time ever...it is probably 6 miles from my house and I've never been there! I'm going to go this weekend, I think.

I like spice mixtures, since, left to my own devices (without a recipe) I'm never sure what works together. Last night we had a very simple meal of chicken and roasted veggies. I just sprinkled Herbs de Provence over the whole shebang and it was delish!

Love Penzey's! I get their Vietnamese Cinnamon which is probably one of my favorite spices. There's almost nothing you can't add cinnamon to. And I like a lot of their blends, like the parisienne, pasta sprinkles, tuscan sunset...

But it's easier to list a top 10 flavorings, I guess more herbs than spices, in no particular order...
garlic
cinnamon
parsley
basil
tarragon
nutmeg
thyme
cloves
oregano
cumin

but then again, I'd want to add even more...like curry powder and paprika, and chervil, and parsley, and chili, and...

DH used scrap lumber to make "steps" for my spice cabinet... a 2x4 on its side, and a 2x2 in front that he then sanded and painted. So I get more spice storage and the back bottles are elevated so I can see the labels.

Like a DIY version of this thing.

Cloves

Fresh ginger! A little tarragon goes a loooong way for me. For those who do not like cilantro, does it taste like soap? I read that those who do not like cilantro have a gene (or gene marker?) that makes it taste like soap.

Fresh ginger is also my favorite, and I use it in both sweet and savory dishes. About the only other spice I use in both is cardamom - I do not like nutmeg or cinnamon in savory dishes although I like both of them in sweet dishes. I used to make my on Thai curry paste because the ones I could buy had cinnamon in them, but now I can find commercial Thai curry paste that does not have cinnamon. I can tolerate a small amount of cinnamon in Indian food, but that's as far as it goes.

For just savory dishes, Sumac is probably my favorite. I use a fair amount of coriander, which I harvest from cilantro plants that I allow to go to seed. I end up with tons of it because I use so much cilantro, but lately I have been using quite a bit of it in making pickles.

This time of year I have to have nutmeg for my eggnog.

Lars

Basil.
I have most all of Penzey's blends and they are invaluable!
Favorites are Ozark, Old World, Mitchell Street, Forward, Northwoods, Greek, French Four Spice, Bavarian, Arizona and Foxpoint.