Raw Spice Bar Review with Pork with Cabbage, Apples & Noodles Recipe

I am sure you realize by now that I like to spend time in the kitchen. I like nothing more than being challenged to create something so when I was asked to do a Raw Spice Bar Review I said yes. The company sent me a packet of three spice blends at no charge with which to experiment. Let me first tell you about the company and then I’ll show you what I made with one of this month’s packages..

Raw Spice Bar, Raw Spice Bar Review, #sponsored — Image courtesy Raw Spice Bar

Raw Spice Bar sends three different spice blends a month along with recipes utilizing the spices (each recipe serves 4 – 6) and a history of the region being featured that month. For example, December’s box was a celebration of all things Norwegian. I’ll come back to that in a moment. Subscriptions are available on a quarter to quarter basis or you can pay for a year. The Yearly Subscription to RawSpiceBar is discounted. Your kit will have 6 freshly ground spices & blends. Enough to cook 2 meals/week for 3-4. The website has a treasure trove of recipes to help you with the more exotic blends to expand your cooking.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy from my link I might make a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay. See the full affiliate disclosure here.

Raw Spice Bar, Raw Spice Bar Review, December Box, #sponsored — Images courtesy Raw Spice Bar

The Norwegian spices included Gravlax Spices, Winter Herbs and Gingerbread Spices. I adore gingerbread – it’s one of my favorite flavors for cake so I knew I’d have fun with that package. I had just bought some salmon for the hubby so I knew I’d be making good use of the gravlax spices. The winter herbs called to me first.

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I had a pork loin and I knew that the wonderful blend would be amazing on pork. It smelled like heaven when I opened the envelope. To cook the pork I just sprinkled a little of the blend (2 tsp) and some salt over the top of the loin and roasted it until it was done. What was wonderful is that I had leftovers – and that led me to my second meal.

Pork Loin with Cabbage, Apples and Noodles

1 cup leftover cooked pork loin
2 cups cooked wide egg noodles
1 apple, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
2 cups steamed cabbage
1 tsp Winter Herbs from rawspicebar.com
2 tsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup dried cranberries
salt to taste

Heat the butter in a large saute pan.
Add the apples and heat until they are just beginning to soften.
Add the pork and heat through.
Add the cabbage and heat through.
Add the noodles and heat through.
Add the dried cranberries and mix well.
Taste and adjust seasoning with salt.

This was a really tasty use of leftovers to be sure but it wasn’t the end of the Winter Herbs! The next week I made a chicken dish using them. A very simple stuffed, whole chicken breast.

It was super easy to make – you just need a whole chicken breast, a piece of garlic, a lemon and some olive oil.

Cut the lemon into chunks, the garlic too. Add 1 tsp of the winter herbs and 1 TBS olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of salt. Mix it all together and stuff it into the chicken breast. Sprinkle the rest of the winter herbs over the chicken breast and roast in a preheated 350° oven for about an hour.

I served it with some green beans and some nutty rice. The chicken was delicious – the lemon flavor paired very well with the herb blend and really flavored the chicken beautifully.

You can see that I stretched the herbs in the envelope to fully flavor three meals (actually 5 because the chicken breast fed us for two more nights in other meals) so if you try you can make the envelopes sent last longer than the one recipe included in the package.

Or you can just go for it and try the recipes from the country of the month. Who knows what I’m going to do as the year rolls on? I’m really excited about getting the different spices each month and we’ll see where the adventure takes me. I really like the idea of receiving these different spices/herbs in the mail once a month. I might make something familiar but I might also try something I’ve never made before. The only thing I wonder is that if I make something I really like and I’ve used all of the envelope I have no way of getting more of the specific blend that was sent. I’d have to improvise from my spice racks. That’s probably easier for a cook like me who has erm, 72+ different spices and herbs on her shelves than a newer or less adventurous cook who does not. It would be nice if there were a way to purchase a favorite blend.