Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: making spice sugars

My favorite way to teach easy improvisation in the kitchen is to make Spice Salts. As the name suggests, a Spice Salt is any spice--or combination of spices--mixed with salt. It is THE way to taste if and how different spices go together. Once you have a Spice Salt you like, you can build on it to make a unique Spice Oil, Butter, Mustard, Broth, or Yogurt. With those condiments, you are a piece of protein, produce, grain, or pasta away from a meal.

With the same ease, you can experiment mixing spices to sugars, too, Add these Spice Sugars to hot chocolate, iced coffee, sugar cookies, caramels, and other holiday confections. Or put them on toasted nuts, like I did for last weekend’s holiday fair, where I tossed the nuts with little pieces of sharp cheddar and a sherry-raisin sauce.

You’re familiar with Spice Sugars already, if cinnamon sugar or pumpkin spice is your thing. But why not try your hand making some original ones? Grab two or more spices that you normally wouldn’t put together and add a spoonful of sugar to taste. Try crushed fennel seed and pink peppercorn or cumin and cinnamon.

Here are some quick ideas for how to use whatever sugar you make:.

Otherwise Trash: Whole Squash Soup

For years, I struggled to make a winter squash soup I wanted to eat on repeat, until now. Meet my Whole Squash Soup. This no-waste soup is made with a seed-and-pulp-thickening broth that adds flavor and creaminess. For it to work, you need squash with large cavities that contain many seeds and lots of pulp. Look beyond butternut, honeynut, and acorn. Choose the larger, round squashes—Carnival, Blue Hubbard, Kabocha. If you can, grab one with skin thin enough to eat (once roasted).  You’ll puree the flesh and skin at the end.

This soup is made in parts, simultaneously--the roasted squash and the squash broth.  Splitting techniques not only saves you time, but roasting the squash deepens it’s flavor. I suggest roasting the whole squash, no matter its size, so even if you don’t use it all for the soup—that’s a call you’ll make when you blend the squash and stock at the end—you can have leftovers to enjoy on their own.

Yield 4 servings

1 Carnival or other squash (about 3 pounds) with thin skin, washed well, then cut in half through the stem, seeds and pulp removed and reserved
8 tablespoons butter, divided
5 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
2 thin leeks, white part sliced (about 1 cup)
4 cups excellent chicken or vegetable stock

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the cleaned, seeded, and scraped squash into 1-inch wedges.  Place them in a baking dish. In a small pan or pot, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter.  Add the honey, spices, and salt and bring to a near simmer to combine and infuse, then pour this mixture over the squash pieces.  Lay the pieces on one flat side and place in the oven.  Roast for 15 minutes, then flip the pieces over.  Roast until they are knife-tender, another 15 – 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven to rest.

Meanwhile, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the leeks and squash seeds and pulp.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the butter has been absorbed, the leeks are completely soft, and the pulp begins to stick to the bottom of the pan and brown, about 20 minutes.  Do not let the squash pulp burn.  Add the stock and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula to release the brown bits into the broth.

Transfer the contents of the pot to a blender and puree until very smooth.  Pour the stock through a fine mesh strainer back into the pot, discarding any unblended seeds.  You should have about 4 cups of creamy, flavorful stock.

Once the squash wedges are roasted, puree them with the strained stock, starting with just half of the pieces, and making sure to include all of the sweet and spiced juices in the pan.  If the squash skin is thin enough, you will not have to strain the soup at this point, but taste and decide for yourself.  At this point, you’ll also want to taste and adjust the salt and spices as needed. 

Serve the soup hot or cold. In the photo above, it’s served with a huge dollop of herb sauce.

Two in One: Cranberry Sauce and Cranberry Syrup

I never miss a chance to turn one recipe into two, so I was giddy to learn that I could have delicious cranberry sauce just by saving the fruit leftover from making cranberry syrup. There are many recipes that marry cranberry and orange, as this one does. However. this syrup goes all in with maple syrup, instead of sugar. It is a bit of a splurge, but worth the upgrade. My version is riffed off of a cocktail by Half Baked Harvest.

Yield: maybe 4 cups (enough for 8 to 10 drinks) syrup and 2 cups cranberry sauce

1 cup amber maple syrup
1 cup water
4 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
zest of 2 oranges (peeled in strips, with no white pith)

Place syrup, water, cranberries, and orange zest in a non-reactive pot. Bring to a quick boil over high heat. Boil until the cranberries begin to burst, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Once cool, strain, reserving both the fruit and syrup. Use the syrup as a base for a shrub, with the addition of this brine. I’d start with a small splash of brine per serving of syrup. The cooked fruit (along with the softened zest—I like to keep it in) should require nothing more than a spoon to eat.

*photo credit Lucy Schaeffer

Winter Squash Pickles

This strong pickle brine is a way for the squash to wear a different set of flavors without losing its great texture. Steaming the slices first ensures that they are tender but stay sturdy, and that they will absorb the brine.

No need to peel the squash; the peel helps the flower-shaped slices that result from cutting the '“wavy” sides of the squash crosswise stay intact, and is often tender enough to eat.

makes 1 quart

1 large acorn squash, about 2 pounds, scrubbed

1 quart apple cider vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon powdered mustard

1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds

1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin

pinch of hot red pepper

Cut the squash in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds and fibers from the cavity, then cut each half crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices.

Fill a medium saucepan with just under 1 inch of water. Place a steamer basket on top and layer the squash in the basket. Cover the pan. Bring the water to a simmer over medium heat and steam the squash until knife-tender but not mushy, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring the vinegar, sugar, powdered mustard, mustard seeds, turmeric, cumin, and red pepper flakes to a quick boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Turn the heat down and simmer for a few minutes to develop the flavors. Cover to keep warm and set aside.

Life the steamer basket out of the pan. Discard the water and immediately put the squash back directly into the pan. Cover with the hot brine. Weight down any floating pieces of squash with a smaller pot lid or cover them with a piece of parchment paper. Let cool to room temperature.

You can serve the pickles right away or refrigerate in the brine in a covered container for up to 1 month.

From The Nimble Cook by Ronna Welsh

From Few Ingredients, Many Possible Meals

Thanks to the UC Berkeley graduate College of Environmental Design for inviting me to contribute to their interdisciplinary issue of Room One Thousand, dedicated to the "super trivial mega small extra common ultra boring," by which they mean the "ideas, projects, and individuals who . . attune their practices to the forces that make the small, discrete, and unassuming so resonate."

In "From Few Ingredients, Many Possible Meals," I introduce a more thoughtful, waste-conscious, and sustainable way to cook. Academia right on your plate!

It's a gorgeous journal (book, really), with illustrations by Leah Altman, adapted from my cookbook, The Nimble Cook. If you want your own copy: https://www.roomonethousand.com/shop

Restaurant Camp summer 2025

Two weeks of Restaurant Camp this summer gave us 16 outstanding, original, restaurant-quality dishes. Congratulations to all the campers for making seriously great food.

Any-Herb Syrup for Lemonade

Steeping herbs overnight in just-made simply syrup yields the most flavor with a light hint of color.
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
pinch of coarse kosher salt
1 cup well-washed soft fresh herbs (such as cilantro, mint, dill, or parsley) OR
½ cup leaves from woody fresh herbs (such as rosemary, oregano, lavender, or thyme)

Bring the sugar, water, and salt to a quick boil in a small saucepan. As soon as the sugar dissolves, submerge the herbs in the hot syrup. Turn off the heat, cover, and let cool completely. Store the syrup in a container in the refrigerator overnight before straining. The syrup will keep for at least to 2 weeks.

“Instant,” From-Scratch Lemonade:

For 6 to 8 servings
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup Any-Herb Simple Syrup
6 cups water

Combine all the ingredients in a big pitcher and stir well. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 3 days. Pour over ice to serve.

Might as Well: Roasted Potato Nubs

I typically make potato pancakes with big, fat russets. They are good for texture and, frankly, easier to grate.

But this year, i made latkes with little gold potatoes I had leftover. My plan was to push them through my food processor, skipping the manual struggle of grating altogether. But the attachment that secures my grater disc to the processor base got ground up in my vitamix last year. I forgot about this mishap, until it was ‘go’ time.

So with my box grater, I worked my way through the 2-inch potatoes, taking them down to the safest, smallest nubs. These pieces, scraggly and misshapen, piled up and began to count for something themselves. They were the size of wedges I’d otherwise intentionally cut to roast, plus they had crinkled surfaces that would crisp well, so I doused them with olive oil, cranked up the oven (425F), and put them in. Might as well: I was there making the latkes anyway.

Roasted Squash Slices with Their Seeds

You can roast squash in thin, unpeeled, unseeded slices for a playful, meaty, versatile “chip.”
Consider adding toasted, seed-full slices to crisp salad greens. I also love this squash in dressed with Garlic Yogurt Sauce and Pickled Parsley. You’ll find these two recipes on pages 380 and 66 of The Nimble Cook. Check out my advice for Martha Stewart on toasting squash seeds.

No two squash are the same size. To ensure you’re seasoning them sufficiently, use about 1 teaspoon salt for every pound of squash.

Makes 4 cups, enough for 4 servings

1 large butternut squash (about 2 pounds), scrubbed
Excellent olive oil
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Trim each end of the squash slightly. Cut in half crosswise, separating the bulbous seed section from the neck of the squash. Cut each in half again, lengthwise this time. Place the flat side of each piece down on the cutting board. With a sharp, heavy knife, cut crosswise into half moons no more than ¼ inch thick. You will cut through the seed cavity, keeping the seeds tethered to the flesh. (You can cut the squash and store it raw, covered with a damp paper towel in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.)

Use either a pastry brush to lightly paint each side of each slice of squash with olive oil, or your hands, taking care not to push out any seeds. Season evenly with salt and arrange on the baking sheets.

Roast the squash for 15 minutes. The pieces should be tender and bright orange. Raise the oven temperature to 425ºF and roast until the squash slices begin to brown, 7 to 10 minutes more. Use a wide spatula to carefully flip each slice. Roast until the slices appear slightly wrinkled and dry, another 5 to 7 minutes. Some pieces will look plumper than others.

The squash slices will keep for up to 2 days in the refrigerator. Stored cold, the seeds will get progressively chewier, but they will re-crisp if you heat the squash slices in a preheated 300ºF oven for 10 minutes.

Otherwise, Trash: Apple Peel Crisps

One apple pie or a batch of apple sauce yields enough peels worth crisping. Peel your apples in long strips, from the stem to the butt. Place the strips in a small bowl and toss very lightly with olive oil, then season lightly with salt and allspice–substitute cinnamon, if you want. Spread the peels out in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

You can dry the peels in one of two ways:

1) Place in a 325 F oven for about 20 minutes, tossing the peels halfway, then again every five minutes until they begin to curl and are mostly dry. If they begin to brown too quickly, turn the oven off and let them sit in the residual heat until they dry out completely.

2) For gas ovens only: Place the tray of peels on the bottom rack of the oven, with the oven turned off. Let the peels sit overnight to dry out.

Store dried peels in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature.

Chuck the Veg Broth: A Bright Stock for Spring

Of all the packaged, shelf-stable broths, vegetable is the worst. Orange-colored with a tinny smell, this stock is hardly suited to carrot soup, and definitely wrong for the green stalks and leaves of spring.

But unless you want to forego soups for the season, and miss opportunities to make light, vibrant sauces, you'll want to have a stock that extends the flavors of what currently grows from the ground.

Enter Quick Spring Stock. Spring stock is light, vegetal, and versatile. It is made with scraps and peels, that, because they are minced in the food processor, ready cook in 10 minutes.

You can enrich the broth with grated Parmesan cheese, heavy cream or sour cream, a dollop of pesto, fresh ginger and an egg yolk, and much more. Add to this, quickly blanched English peas, slivered asparagus, and shelled and peeled fava beans. Top with a handful of fresh herbs.

Quick Spring Stock

from The Nimble Cook by Ronna Welsh

My favorite “otherwise, trash“ recipe is for a five-minute stock made from the scraps of green and white vegetables. Alone, it is slightly acidic and tastes a little grassy. But in soups like Roasted Cucumber and Buttermilk Soup (page 128), and Braised Celeriac Soup (page 171) and in risotto with Herb-Infused Butter (page 325), it is elegant. It exposes boxed vegetable stock for the food-colored sham it is.

This is likely the only “stock” you can make in minutes. In fact, if you cook it much beyond the simmer, you risk dulling its bright flavors.

Be precise about preparing your ingredients. A little white pith from the lemon rind or a few extra dark green celery leaves can turn the stock too bitter. If you have more vegetable tops and stems than you need for the stock, save some for Quick Spring-Stock Citronette (page 89).

Makes about 6 cups

1 cup roughly chopped fennel stalks and fronds
½ cup roughly chopped parsley stems
1 cup roughly chopped celery tops, ends, and leaves (not including any dark leaves)
Zest of 1 lemon, removed in strips with a vegetable peeler
1 small onion wedge, chopped
6 cups water
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled but roughly chopped
½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Put the fennel, parsley stems, celery, lemon zest, and onion in a food processor. Pulse until finely ground. Transfer to a medium saucepan; do not wash the processor bowl. Add the water and vinegar to the pan and turn the heat to high. Finely chop the garlic in the food processor.

Monitor the stock closely as it nears a simmer. As the water heats up, the herbs that touch the side of the pot will begin to dull in color. When this happens, remove the pot from the heat and immediately strain the stock. Add the garlic while the stock is still very hot. Let cool completely, then strain once more. Add the salt. Store in the refrigerator in a covered container for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Icing Outside the Lines

I made this cake for a recent dinner party at my kitchen studio. It's my mom's famous carrot (with pecans, not walnuts, cinnamon only and no cloves, and caramel filling). The icing is classic cream cheese.

I took its picture, though the top of the cake reveals my struggle with a thick, stiff frosting. I wanted to capture a moment where I was failing to do one thing well, until I saw options for doing it differently. Here, I decided, it was better to decorate the plate, not the cake itself. The number of icing "stars" matched the celebrant's age. To serve, I placed a sparkler on top.

I needed to buck convention to save the cake. Three cheers for icing outside the lines!

Writing Recipes, and a Favorite for Spring

Not everyone likes long recipes, but recipes that teach best are packed with information.

A recipe for minestrone should talk about the role of cheese in enriching broth and adding salt, how when you add bacon affects how much you'll need, when and why to add fresh and dried herbs, how potatoes thicken differently than beans, and why good stock matters. Some dishes take almost as long to explain as they do to make.

But what if not everyone can take in information the same way? Or even the same way on different days?

I've started to play around with font type and size, format, and phrasing in my own recipe writing. When appropriate, I like to write recipes for a cooking class only after I've taught it, and even if I've written the same recipe many times before. This way, I can refer back to shared class moments in a recipe, linking it to a specific place and taste. The instruction is better for it, I think.

But how should published recipes be written, so that not only can the most people follow along, but are even willing to?

What do the recipes you most use look like?
How do your favorite recipes read?

One Favorite Recipe for Spring

While I'm at it, here is a recipe for a quick buttermilk dressing from The Nimble Cook that you should make at the first sight of spring. No matter how you write it, it's delicious.

Buttermilk Dressing

If you’re going to buy buttermilk to make pancakes, you might as well use the extra to make something else.

Here, enriched with sour cream, aromatic with tarragon, and brightened with lemon juice, the buttermilk mounts to a full, tangy dressing that clings beautifully to milder lettuces but also stands up to rich game meat. I pair it with peaches, celery, asparagus, duck, and more.

Makes ½ cup

¼ cup sour cream

Up to ¼ cup buttermilk

Grated zest of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¾ teaspoon coarse kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

Combine the sour cream, 2 tablespoons of the buttermilk, the lemon zest, salt, pepper, and tarragon in a bowl and whisk vigorously until smooth. Add more buttermilk to get the consistency you want. Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Super Condiments: Sesame Soy Garlic Sauce

I'm not in the mood to measure while I'm rushing dinner prep, so I rarely make something from scratch that I can't do by rote.

The trouble is, my "rote" repertoire leans heavily on my Mediterranean training, and if overplayed, my lemon, herb, and garlic go-tos turn to dishes I'd rather run from. That's when I turn to Power Condiments.

What is a power condiment?

A power condiment is a dressing, sauce, marinade, paste, etc that can be made in bulk, stored well for a few weeks, and widely deployed. Ideally for me, it includes flavors I am always happy to eat, but don't often fall back on.

In current rotation: a simple Soy-Garlic-Sesame Sauce.

Use this sauce as written to dress pre-salted cucumbers and radish or slices of avocado. Stir in Dijon mustard to brush on salmon or to drizzle on mustard greens. Warm and thicken with egg yolk for seared chicken or buckwheat noodles. Substitute balsamic for rice vinegar to marinate steak. Add miso to marinate tofu. And mayonnaise for sweet potato fries.

Sesame Soy Garlic Sauce

makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/4 cup plus 4 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup rice wine vinegar
6 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons sugar
16 garlic cloves, minced or grated
2 - 3 tablespoons chili paste

Mix together well. Store in the refrigerator in a covered container for up to 3 weeks.

Poached Strawberries

I poached these strawberries in vinho verde the first time and dry white vermouth the next. I imagine, perhaps increasing the sugar, you could poach them in fresh grapefruit juice, too.

The key step in this process is to continually collect and reduce the poaching syrup after the berries have cooked. You store the berries in this syrup as it cools. Use any extra syrup to flavor lemonade or a glass of sparkling water or wine.

1 pound strawberries, trimmed and halved if extra large
3/4 cup white wine, dry vermouth, or the like
1/2 cup sugar
2 large sprigs of tarragon
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Place the strawberries in a wide-bottom pot, no more than 2 layers deep. Add the wine, sugar, tarragon, and peppercorns.

Cover and cook at a low simmer, swirling the pan occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves without burning. Cook until the berries are tender, plump, and have darkened, about 7 minutes. The syrup will have turned beet red.

Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl or heatproof container. Pour the strawberries into the strainer, then return the poaching liquid to the pot, using a rubber spatula to transfer as much of the liquid back to the pot as you can.

Keep the strainer suspended over the bowl to collect the poaching liquid as the strawberries sit. Keep an eye on the bowl, so you can continually add this liquid back to the pot as it accumulates.

Meanwhile, slowly reduce the strained poaching liquid over low heat until it reduces to a syrup and coats the back of a spoon, 15 - 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, then place both the syrup and strained strawberries back in the bowl. The berries will be submerged.

Let cool to room temperature before storing. Keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Serve cold.