The Bitten Word

Indian-Spiced Turkey Meatloaf with Spicy Indian Ketchup

 A Bitten Word Recipe

Our kitchen has a bad case of the Overflowing Spice Rack. 

Not to look a spice-gift horse in the mouth, but between wedding gifts and impulse purchases, we've got just about any kind of spice, rub or salt that you could name. (We're still looking for a fun recipe to use our newly acquired Urfa Biber.)

On the one hand, this is extremely convenient, not having to run to the supermarket every time we're cooking.  On the other hand, these spices won't last forever and we hate to see them slink slowly into the back of the spice rack, never to be seen again.

So this was a recipe borne both out of cravings and need.

First, the craving: After two weeks in South America, we've been thrilled to be able to cook again. There's just something about being in your own kitchen and being able to make yourself a bowl of cereal that's terribly comforting. We loved our binge on Argentine steak, but making roast chicken, turkey and, yes, meatloaf has been a nice change of pace since our return.

Then came the need: As we mentioned, we are stocked when it comes to spices, and we're feeling the need to put some of our under-utilized spices (especially coriander and turmeric) to use before they go bad. Plus, our fantastic house-sitter left some food at the house, including a package of ground turkey.  (There's also a package of firm tofu we need to figure out what to do with.  AND he left us peanut butter, which pretty much makes him the best house-sitter ever.)

So facing both rumbling tummies and a spice rack threatening to overtake the rest of our kitchen, we decided to wing it and experiment with making an Indian-Spiced Turkey Meatloaf.

Let's see how we did!

Mexican Chocolate Tart with Cinnamon Crema

A Bitten Word Recipe

In our run-up to Thanksgiving, there was one dish we never had a chance to post. But we think it's such a great dessert -- appropriate throughout the holidays, and anytime, really -- that we still wanted to write about it.

When we had folks over for Fakesgiving, we, of course, cooked a bevy of food-mag recipes. But we wanted to make at least one dish that was all our own. And we knew we wanted -- make that needed -- a chocolate dessert to round out our menu. So we came up with this Mexican Chocolate Tart with Cinnamon Crema.

It's a caliente twist on a holiday standard -- a classic chocolate pie -- with just enough south-of-the-border spice to chase away the winter chill.