CARDAMOM - Has a pungent, unique taste and little is needed to impart flavor - which is good since it is an expensive spice! (second only to saffron). It is the seeds of a plant, which can be bought within the dried fruit pods or ground. It is also a very ancient spice. True Cardamom - "Elletaria", is commonly called green cardamom, while "Amomum" cardamom (black or brown) is not the same thing, but a decent substitute. It is used to flavor coffee or tea in the Middle East, curries, and also in Danish pastries. Try substituting it for cinnamon in a cinnamon/sugar blend for toast or other sweets - yummy!
VANILLA - a familiar and favorite flavor for many, we are mostly familiar with adding a little vanilla
extract to our baked goods, but for some truly amazing vanilla flavor - smooth and mellow and special, nothing beats the bean. Buying vanilla beans (actually the seed-pod of the plant) is a bit of an investment as a single bean can cost five or six dollars. This is because of the labor-intensive, time-consuming harvest. Did you know that the orchid which produces vanilla beans opens its flower only one day per year, and even then only for a couple of hours? You may come across beans which are one of three varieties - Bourbon-Madagascar, Tahitian, or Mexican. To store your vanilla bean(s) you can either wrap it tightly in plastic, store it in a tightly sealed jar in the freezer, or you can bury it in sugar (about 1 lb, and deep enough so that no light gets to it) in a tightly sealed jar. After a couple of weeks, the sugar will taste like vanilla and you can use it to flavor coffee or for baking, and remove the vanilla bean for use. Many recipes call for splitting the bean and scraping out the seeds to simmer in a liquid portion of the recipe.
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