Celebrate Green Blog

I found a hand held stick blender with a mini food processor attachment a while back at a thrift store for $5. I always check kitchen gadgets section when I'm at a thrift store. I've gotten lots of good second hand items, and I've saved a ton of money.

I needed Herbes de Provence for a dish the other day, but I only had a jar that contained lavender in the mix. My husband is crazy about lavender in his food. I was going to run out to buy a jar, but then it occurred to me that I can make my own blend. I had all the individual spices on hand so I found some suggestions online and put together my own Herbes de Provence omitting the lavender that it usually calls for.

I put all the individual spices in the mini-food processor* that came with my hand held stick blender and gave them a bit of a whirl together. Just enough to really blend them well.

There are several advantages to creating your own spice mixes.

• You’ll save money. A jar of organic spices can run $5 or more. I saved that by mixing together the spices I had on hand.
• Spices don’t last forever. This is a way of using up what I have instead of adding another jar on my spice shelf that will lose flavor over time.
• You won’t have to make a special trip to the store just for one spice.
• Once you get comfortable with it, you can get creative and make original blends.

Here is the the blend of dried spices I used for the Herbes de Provence.

• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp summer savory
• 1 tsp marjoram
• 1 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp sage
• 1/8 tsp fennel

There are many different spice mixes you can create like:

apple pie spices (You know this early fall weather had you dreaming of apple pie.)

taco seasoning (Bonus – you’ll avoid any unwanted ingredients from the packaged mixes.)

Essence of Emeril (I wish I had known this before I bought a jar of it a while back)

garlic salt (Fresh garlic and salt – that’s it)

poultry seasoning (Good for Thanksgiving morning when you realizes you don’t have a jar!)

The possibilities are endless. Do you have a seasoning mix that you make yourself that you’d like to share with us. Leave it in the comments, please.

* You can use a full size food processor, a blender or a morter & pestle to do this, but don’t use a coffee grinder. It will work, but you’ll never be able to get the spice smell out of the coffee you grind afterward.