Less of Josephine.

Since I’ve cut so far back on sodium I’ve been really feeling the lack of strong flavor in some of my meals. I like strong, heavily-flavored, spicy (REALLY SPICY) foods and I’ve been doing a bad job translating that into reality in my fledgling cooking attempts. So I really need to start working with spices to get that flavor up! Bring on the hot peppers! Tabasco! Cayenne! And… what else? I’m drawing a blank. What the heck is in Chinese and Thai food that makes it hot? Curry? Those funky looking red pepper things? Whatever it is I want it! Obviously I need to do some research. I’m sure this is like Cooking 101 or something and here I am fumbling along trying to figure it out. My poor mother, she is a naturally good cook and when I call her and ask, “How long do you bake a potato?” she must wonder exactly how the gene skipped me.

I checked out the “Vegan Handbook” from the library and my goal is to pick out a couple of recipes (simple recipes, I’m all about fast and simple) to try and make. The first I’m going to do is “Curried Eggplant Sauce” (eggplant, tomatoes, green onions, raisins, curry powder and cayenne!) for over pasta or rice. And because I’m immensely attracted to anything with the word “cake” in the title, I’m also going to try “Spicy Corn Pancakes” (corn, chipotle peppers and garlic - yay!).

Mmmmmm, hopefully they will turn out as good as they sound.