Kitchen Faves--Spices

I wanted to take some time to share some of my favorite things in my kitchen and thought I would start with my spice area. These are small, round containers with a magnet on the back and I store them on the side of my refrigerator. In addition to spices I have some cake/cookie decorations and sprinkles. I love the fact that everything is easily accessible, I can find everything and I really enjoy seeing all the different colors. There are some spice blends in there, some I have bought and some are ones that I assemble myself. Things like taco seasoning, fajita seasoning, and hamburger seasoning I use quite a bit so when I make it I make quite a bit of it. 

My spice "wall" gets a lot of comments when I have visitors. I almost always get asked these two questions: "Do you use all those spices?" and "How did you afford to buy all those spices? My grocery budget won't stretch to buy a lot of spices like that."

DO I USE ALL THOSE SPICES? Yes I do. Some more often than others, but I do use all of them. I like to experiment cooking from from different areas of the globe that sometimes call for very specific spices. I don't use a lot of salt in my cooking, I rely on spices for flavor. 

HOW DID YOU AFFORD ALL THOSE SPICES?  One or two at a time! When I first moved out into my own apartment, I wanted to make some spice cookies from a recipe that a friend had shared with me. Those cookies were so good when she made them but they have about seven different spices in them. I learned very quickly that my "just moved out on my own" budget could not buy all of these spices at once. So I bought one. Then every time I went to the grocery store and I had any extra money, I would buy one spice. It took me several months before I could make those cookies! But that is something I continued as I build my spice collection. I would find an interesting recipe and if I was missing a spice or two, I would put it aside until I could buy the spices to make it. After a while, I had quite a few and then it was just a matter of replacing the ones that I had used. Today, it is pretty rare for me to find a recipe that I am missing the spices for unless I am working on something very regional.