"spice" news and stories

Not all appetite suppressants come in pill form. After all, food itself is an appetite suppressant. The trick is not to used hamburgers and macaroni and cheese, but to opt for more filling and less fattening alternatives. Fortunately, it is actually easy to incorporate some of these filling foods into your regular diet without totally changing the way you eat and without giving in to temptation too often.

Registered dietitians recommend high fiber, low fat foods as the best ways to fill up without filling out. Some top choices are:

• Pine nuts -- fatty acids in pine nuts trigger the release cholecystokinin (CKK), a hormone that could help suppress appetite.
• Spicy foods -- can boost your metabolism and "dull your taste buds so you're apt to eat less." On the positive side, the spices will taste great even if whatever you're tempted to eat after doesn't.
• Apples -- high fiber, low calorie. They have more fiber per bite than other fruits and one before a meal can help speed satiety.
• Milk -- the research is still up in the air, but some scientists think that the calcium in dairy can help break down fat.
• Light greens -- cabbage, celery and lettuce (as well as cucumbers) are very low in calories and can be added to most meals or salads to bulk them up.

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Gingersnaps are snappy in both name and flavor, even though they are not always as crispy as the name seems to promise that they will be. To honor both types of cookies in our ongoing Christmas Cookie of the Week feature, I have two recipes for gingersnaps: one crisp and one soft.

The crisp cookie is from a recipe that has been circulating around the blogs for about 2 years now and it comes from Chez Panisse, though it was originally posted by Renee of feeding dexygus seconds. The cookies are very thin and each piece of dough is sliced off a frozen brick, so the cookies turn out in an unusual rectangular shape. They are buttery, flavorful and, due to the fact that they are extremely light, they are very addictive.

The second recipe is for chewy, soft gingersnap cookies. I spotted this recipe and was immediately attracted to its simplicity and the fact that it uses part whole wheat flour, since it never hurts to get a couple extra nutrients in during the holidays. The cookies are moist and surprisingly satisfying. I used pearl sugar to finish them off, but you can use any coarse sugar to create a nice, crisp top.

Measuring out spices isn't always easy. Some jars only have little perforations in the lid, allowing you to sprinkle, not pour, and if they are removable, the perforated caps are often so difficult to take off that you end up spilling the spice anyway. Other jars simply have unusually shaped openings that don't allow anything other than the very smallest measuring spoons to get inside to scoop up the desired spice. This neat Auto-measure spice rack fits 8 different spices (they must be transferred into the included bottles) and it automatically dispenses them 1/4 tsp at a time, so you can simply add your spices directly to your mixing bowl without bothering to get out measuring spoons at all. The bottles still do have "pop tops for shaking and pouring," if you feel the need to sprinkle your spices, however. The unit can be easily mounted underneath a cabinet or simply set on the countertop, depending on how your kitchen is set up.

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Since the two main elements of Halloween are candy and pumpkins, what could be a better way to start the day off that with a batch of sweet, fall-flavored pumpkin muffins? The only thing that could top these Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Molasses Glaze from What We're Eating would be a batch that was emerging from your oven - as opposed to your computer screen - right now. Fortunately for anyone who wants to get into the seasonal spirit by doing a little baking, Amada included her recipe along with the oh-so-tempting photograph.

The muffins have typical pumpkin muffin/bread ingredients - flour, pumpkin, molasses - with one exception: fresh ginger juice. Instead of simply mincing the ginger or adding candied/crystallised ginger. It seems that the advantage of using the juice is that you get all the flavor from the ginger and it is more evenly distributed throughout the muffin, with no risk of biting down into an unminced bit and disturbing the balance of the pastry. Although, if you're a ginger fan, as I am, it probably wouldn't hurt to toss in a handful of crystallised ginger for good measure.

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I have quite a collection of different salts in my spice cabinet due, in no small part, to the general popularity of flaked salts, sea salts and other, more exotic salts from all over the world. At first, I was just following the trend, but as I tried more salts I found that I bought them for their different textures, many of which still come through in a finished dish. I regularly use only a small portion of the salts: Maldon or a pink Australian salt for finishing dishes, kosher or sea salt for cooking and any more finely ground salt, including ordinary table salt, for baking.

The reason I don't use the rest of the salts is that they rarely differ significantly where flavor is concerned. If you're looking for flavor, I'd suggest opting for a salt that is has been purposely flavored. This set from NapaStyle has three different varieties: Sundried Tomato Garlic Gray Salt, Roasted Garlic Gray Salt and Citrus Rosemary Gray Salt. All will add a very impressive flavor-boost to a dish before serving, along with the look and texture of a coarser salt. The grey salt used as a base for the flavors is a sea salt from France that has a light purple-grey color and a slightly moistness to it, which many feel contributes to an increase of flavor during cooking.

Perhaps the best use for these salts, especially if you don't feel like cooking, is as a popcorn seasoning, turning a bag of plain microwave corn into a gourmet snack.

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