Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

At this point I'm really sold on using my coffee grinder to make fresh spice mixes… The flavor of sauces and pastes you can generate is so much richer (but without being overpowering) than you can get from the same combination of pre-powdered spices.

Today my mix was half cascabel and half guajillo peppers in a sesame seed and almond butter (all fresh ground from whole seeds and nuts) with a little salt and brown sugar — a further experiment in the hot and sweet sauces I've been playing with lately. It's on top of zucchini, garbanzo beans, fresh chiles, yellow peppers, and sliced broccoli stalk, fried in sesame oil, fresh lime, and fresh garlic for about five minutes. I ate it with a whole wheat bagel. Also, I had some chickpeas left over, so I made a little side salad with the spice mix, half a lime, and a touch of sesame oil. On the chickpea salad it maintained a lot of its sweet nutty taste that got lost in the stirfry.

When I write these entries people invariably send me very nice messages asking for exact recipes, or even flattering me with the suggestion of putting together a cookbook. Honestly though, everything I post on cooking is really simple. I have no real knowledge on the subject and certainly no training — I just do it because I enjoy it, and you can do the same. Cooking good food is really, really easy. Anyone can do it! Seriously, once you've tried a few times, you'll see how simple this stuff is and how silly it would be to post in-depth recipes of what I eat.