Spices

J and I have been watching Aarti Party religiously lately and have been drooling over the wonderful Indian dishes she creates on her show each Sunday. We also watched her rise to stardom on Next Food Network Star earlier this year. Basically we are Food Network junkies.

While we have been loving her show, we have yet to try any of her recipes. It's not that J and I don't like Indian food--we love it and actually have a few favorite places here and in Omaha that we like to frequent! It's that we don't have the spice cabinet necessary to whip up her dishes; that is, until now.

Last Thursday I visited Penzeys Spices for the first time. We have a big beautiful basket of spices that we were gifted by a dear friend of ours for our wedding from there (the Omaha location) and when I heard there was a St. Louis store, I leaped at the chance to go there myself. Many minutes later I emerged with all the spice ingredients necessary to make Aarti's Baked Samosas (and most of the rest of her food). The price tag was great as well: $10.87! Granted the jars are fairly small (1/4 cup jars) but each of those size jars at the grocery store would have set me back at least double that!

Excuse the picture, my camera hates me...

We also had a few of the other spices she calls for in her recipe on hand such as coriander seeds and black peppercorns, courtesy of our spice rack we received as a gift from our wedding--score!

While we haven't made the samosas yet (and I will be sure to tell you all about it when we do!), we now have the spices to tackle this, and most, of Aarti's amazing meals! Happy cooking!