Try new, healthy foods, and spice up your life! (she: Mrs. Potts)

Hi there! I was absolutely shocked and thrilled when I was invited to be a guest blogger for Or so she says - I have been reading this blog for quite some time, and it's definitely one of my favorites! Just to briefly introduce myself, my name is Lindsey, aka Mrs. Potts. By day, I'm a stay-at-home mom to an amazing 11-month-old boy who we fondly call The Bear (or just Bear), and a wife to my smokin' hot husband who is currently in law school here in sunny South Florida. By night, I write Mrs. Potts' Thoughts, and I maintain my Etsy shop where I sell all sorts of vintage goodies. I love getting to know new people, so feel free to drop me a line!

Now on to the fun stuff...

With documentaries like Food, Inc, and tv shows like Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution having come out in recent months, I feel like our country is finally headed in the right direction in terms of healthy eating. I definitely know that eating healthy is a challenge in a society where processed foods are so easily accessible and inexpensive, so today I want to share a tip with you: use lots of spices. About a year ago, Jessica wrote a post with many great tips for cooking with spices, so go check it out.

My husband is great at improvising - he can just strut into the kitchen, pull a few random things out of the fridge, add a dash of this, a pinch of that, and bam, he's got a great meal. I, on the other hand, am not remotely creative in the kitchen, so I'm thankful that websites like Smitten Kitchen and 101 Cookbooks exist to give me lots of great ideas for healthy, flavorful recipes. And guess what? Nearly all of their recipes use lots of herbs and spices.

(image source)

After several months of attempting to cook from scratch more often, and have a more healthy diet in general, I had accumulated quite the collection of spices. They were all shoved into our spice cupboard haphazardly, and it was getting hard to find things. Here's what it looks like now:

I've got 25 of these babies lined up on the top of the stove.

I saved lots of The Bear's baby food jars and ran them through the dishwasher. Then I traced the lids onto cooking-themed scrapbook paper and cut out tons of little circles. I glued them onto the lids and labeled them with the name of each spice, and then I used some inexpensive ribbon to cover up the 'Gerber' label around the edge of the lid. Then, of course, I transferred all of my spices into the jars. Don't they look nice and colorful? They are a good visual reminder of how fun and flavorful it can be to put a little more effort into cooking a healthy, non-processed dinner. And this whole project cost only a dollar or two.

Here are a few of my other favorite ways to store and display your spices:

Seen on Door Sixteen

Seen on Stephmodo

Be bold and try cooking a few new things. If you have a good recipe to follow, it's not as scary as it may seem. I really enjoy cooking when I'm making something I've never tried before - in fact, that's really the biggest factor in how much I enjoy slaving over a hot stove. If I know there will be a new, interesting taste at the end, it's worth the work. Cooking from scratch, especially with lots of flavorful spices, can be really delicious and rewarding, and most of all, healthy! And hey, if your family doesn't like it, that's just one recipe - there are plenty of others out there!

(P.S. Here and here and here are some great sources for ways to get the picky eaters in your family to try new foods. My best advice in that arena is to give your pickiest eaters the cookbook and let them pick a recipe they want to try.)

Happy cooking!

Love from,

Mrs. Potts

Share it!	Tweet it!	"Like" Or so she says... on Facebook!