I know – I’ve mentioned this handy little concoction before in a bunch o’ postings, referred you back to the bottom of that REALLY good shrimp enchilada recipe, and repeated the recipe in several posts – it just seemed to me it was time to give it a post of it’s own. All the spice folk and food experts go on and on about making certain your spices don’t get too old, how they lose potency and flavor, how a badly managed spice cabinet is what REALLY brought down the Roman empire…
well, maybe they didn’t go QUITE that far; but still, a point has been made.
The thing is, I like my spices, and I’ve been known to serve a tangy dish or three; but it’s really kind of hard for me to use the buggers up in a reasonable amount of time – so why should I buy yet another jar of something, when I can easily toss a batch together using other herbs and spices already crowding my spice rack?
It turns out, chili powder isn’t really just ground chiles – it’s a mixture of chiles and other stuff! A mixture, as it so happens, that you can easily make at home, and customize to suit your tastes and preferences. A mixture that I need to replenish, since my little chili jar seems to be running on empty.
Here it is, then – all you need to make your own chili powder. I AM trying a little experiment with this batch – adding Colman’s mustard powder in place of half of the cumin, which has never been one of my favorite spices anyway, but I’ll give you the basic recipe I found on da Google, and one other option I haven’t tried yet.
INGREDIENTS:
•1 tsp paprika
•1 tsp cayenne pepper
•1 tsp oregano
•2 tsp garlic powder
•2 tsp ground cumin
Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container.
Easy, no? And the proportions are a snap as well, allowing me to easily drop in that 1 tsp of Colman’s for 1 tsp of the cumin, which, inexplicably (because I really do not care for it), I seem to be almost out of.
Of course, I HAVE been making a fair amount of chili powder 😉
Here’s an option I found that adds a few extra spice blends into the mix – as with the recipe above, use either as a guide for proportion and play around to find YOUR perfect chili powder blend.
•2-1/2 tsp paprika
•2 tsp garlic powder
•1 tsp Cayenne
•1 tsp Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute
•1 tsp Mediterranean Lamb Rub (from The Spice House)
•1 tsp pepper
•1 tsp salt
As with the basic blend, combine and store in an airtight container.