Make Your Own Seasoned Salt

Guest Writer:  Ruth Morse

'TIS THE SEASON

OK, OK, this "season" is not the season you might expect. This is a recipe for making your own SEASONED SALT.

Why would anyone bother to make her own seasoned salt, you might ask?

The hoity-toity answer: you can fine tune the ingredients to your own liking or to your personal dietary needs. Such as, using celery seed instead of celery salt. Are you buying this?

Real answer: I ran out of purchased seasoned salt and realized I had all the below ingredients in my cupboard, so why not?

Got the basic recipe out of a murder mystery I read many years ago, but try to overlook that. The victim did not die of Seasoned Salt Poisoning, by the way. I have tweaked the ingredients to my liking, not because I'm that smart but because I used what I had and it worked.

Are you ready? Pencils poised?

Place the following ingredients in a small bowl:

• 1/4 cup table salt [right away, you are thinking: YIKES, ARE YOU KIDDING?]
• 1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder [or garlic salt if that is all you have]
• 1 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder [see garlic powder above]
• 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon ground oregano

HINT: Since I am a senior citizen, I get all the spice bottles out ahead of time, then arrange them in the order they are listed in the recipe. Please note that the spices in the recipe are NOT in alphabetical order, but ARE in order of quantity. Isn't that clever? Saves brain cells and at this stage of life, I need all I still have.

There may be a few lumps in your mixture, depending on how long your spices have been kicking around. If you are going to lose sleep over the lumps, you can zip this a few seconds in a blender. If that's not an issue to you, just use a spoon to smash any lumpy ingredient and call it a day. Transfer the mixture into an empty spice bottle. Shake, shake, shake the bottle to get those spices all friendly with each other. If you have an energetic kid around, have them do the shaking for you but make sure the cap is on very tight!

If you are going to save this in a large bottle, you can double the ingredients.

Transfer the whole kit and caboodle into an old, empty spice bottle. As you can see, I don't go for matching bottles.

That's is! All done except for one thing: LABEL YOUR BOTTLE! If you really compulsive, you can label and date your bottle.

Don't you feel all Suzy Homemaker-ish? If you are too young to know what that means, call your momma or grandma and have her explain. Even if you do know what that means, call your momma or grandma anyway and wish her:

SEASONS GREETINGS FOR THIS WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS! 

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...and one more thing......

uh, I'll get back to you when I remember it.

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The Cheap Senior Citizen is a Guest Writer who occasionally shares helpful hints she has learned through her experience.

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