I’ve seen a lot of Paleo blogger raving about Penzeys Spices about how great they are spicing up your dishes. It’s true that you can never have too many spices. However, the closest Penzeys in Los Angeles area is about 25 miles away from my house and with the current gas price plus no income, I can’t justify myself to drive all the way there just to get some spices. They have online ordering as well, but still pricey.

Anyway, I asked Nom Nom Paleo if she could read me the ingredient list from her favorite Penzey Spices, Arizona Dreaming and Sunny Paris seasonings. I forgot to ask her other favorite seasoning, Fox Point seasoning, so I tried to look it up on Penzeys website and so glad they listed the ingredients.

Yesterday I made a point to get some spices that I could to make my own seasonings.

First was Arizona Dreaming seasonings.
Original ingredient list: spices (?), ground ancho, onion, garlic, paprika, citric acid, lemon peel, chipotle pepper, red pepper, jalepeno, cocoa, & natural smoke flavoring.

I could only got some of the ingredients and obviously, Penzeys is smart enough to conceal their secret “spice mixture” so here what I mixed for my homemade Arizona Dreaming seasoning:
onion powder, garlic powder, paprika powder, chipotle pepper powder, chili powder, hickory liquid smoke seasoning and juice from 1 lemon.
I didn’t measure the ingredients, but roughly everything was at least 1-2 tsp.

I used it (plus salt) as my lamb marinate
As usual, my favorite method of cooking bone-in meat – steam it first

Pan fry just brown it

Ready to eat

And that’s what I had for last night dinner (finally a new dish!) along with Hard Boiled Egg Stew, steamed veggies and unripe avocado (ugh!)

It turned out not bad, but I think I could add a bit more chipotle pepper powder to give it an extra kick. I haven’t tried the real Arizona Dreaming seasoning nor any Penzey spices, but roughly I could get some idea.

Next was Fox Point seasoning
According to Penzeys website Fox Point seasoning has: salt, shallots, chives, garlic, onion and green peppercorns.

Ok not too hard right? I substituted the shallots with the fresh one and luckily I have mixed peppercorns and just hand picked the green ones. 😀

Then I blended the peppercorns and chive rings in my Magic Bullet, mix with the rest of the dry ingredients

I used it to marinate the chicken breast fillet, which I had for today’s lunch (and dinner). It tasted soo good! Isn’t it wonderful how different spices could make your dishes taste different? 😀

Dinner was exactly the same just no sweet potatoes, but with a whole ripe avocado instead 🙂

I had a bad purple yam today 🙁 You see this morning I had some of it along with the orange one and more Coconut Chips (super addicting!) and it tasted BITTER! Yuck! That totally killed my appetite!

Which forced me to make another batch of Coconut Chips and munched these guys while I’m “working” the entire morning. That thing kept me super full, even after I finished my 20 minute workout, which explained my small lunch and dinner for today.

Anyway, I made my own spice mixture and can’t wait to experiment with the remaining lamb that I had in the fridge! 😀

Don’t be fooled, these bottles are TINY! Just compare it with Hubby K’s BlackBerry 😀

Have you experimented making your own spice mixture before? Please share some, I am always willing to experiment more! 😀

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