I use it in spiced cider in the fall, in Indian food, in vanilla yogurt (just to jazz up the yogurt), in mango smoothies, etc. Lots of uses! Yum!

Yeah, it really makes a mango lassi. Yum!

There is an awesome cardamom rice pilaf recipe in "Around My French Table" by Dorrie Greenspan. You can see my review of this recipe here.

Cardamom is a spice that's often used in Scandinavian baking. There are lots of swedish breads that use cardamom. I love to put it in my cinnamon roll dough! I also second using it in indian food -- it's a great spice to use with lentils.

I often crush a few pods and put them in the pan when I'm cooking white rice.

I put a pinch in when I make chilled fruit soups in the summer, it really makes them pop.

Lassis, and I've come across a few granola recipes that call for cardamom.

Like sarahdesade, I often put a couple of pods in with my rice (along with a bay leaf and perhaps a clove). And no one has mentioned curries! It's not just for sweet dishes, after all.

Vietnamese pho!

Cardamom coffee! Add a pinch of (freshly) ground cardamom to your coffee grounds.

Deborah Madison has a great icebox cookie recipe that you can do as Orange Cardamom. it's in "Seasonal Fruit Desserts"

Joy the Baker just posted a recipe for Strawberry Upside-Down Cake with Cardamom that looks really yummy and summery
http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/06/strawberry-upside-down-cake-with-cardamom/

Cardamom brownies! Put a small amount of ground cardamom in a rich, dark brownie recipe. It may take a little experimenting to get the amount right, but soooo worth it. It's where-have-you-been-all-my-life amazing.

Agree with zippicurean! I crush one whole pod in a mortar every morning and add to my coffee - either expresso (my fav) or french press. I add the crushed seeds and pod - no need to separate. I love this flavor. Basically Turkish coffee made easy. Also, when I make ice cream or caramels or panna cotta, I will sometimes add a few crushed pods to the cream/milk mixture to seep - then strain them out later. Yummy!

Ditto on the coffee! It's excellent.

Andreas Viastad's "Where Flavor Was Born: Recipes and Culinary Travels Along the Indian Ocean" uses cardamom pods in the Red Coconut Rice recipe.

I made pear preserves recently and filled a muslin bouquet garni bag with cracked cardamom and put it in the preserves while they cooked. The preserves have the most wonderful infused cardamom flavor.

My family is Finnish in heritage, and there has to be someone in the family at all times who knows how to make Nissu, or Finnish Coffee Bread. This makes two loaves (the freeze well, though you'll find that the first loaf will be gone before it even cools, so no need to store that other one..):

3 c. whole milk
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 tsp. ground cardamon (or 12 crushed seeds)
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 pkgs. yeast
6 c. flour
1/2-1 c. raisins (optional)

Makes 2 loaves. In large saucepan, warm milk to lukewarm, add cut-up butter and stir. Pour 1/2 cup of the liquid in a bowl and add yeast. Stir, then let sit until dissolved.

Add sugar to the milk in saucepan and stir well, keeping on low. Beat eggs in small bowl and add to the milk mixture. Add the ground cardamon and raisins (if desired), and stir in the yeast mixture.

Slowly add the entire amount of flour, mixing very well. Transfer mixture into a large bowl. Gradually add more flour (up to 8 cups) until the dough looks dry and stops sticking to the bowl.

Knead dough until elastic - 15 minutes or so. Cover dough in bowl and put in a warm place to rise (3-4 hours). Punch down the dough and divide into 2 balls, let rest 10-15 more minutes. Now divide each ball into thirds, shaping each piece into 15 inch long strands (three strands equals one loaf of bread). Braid the strands, making sure to pinch the ends and tuck underneath the loaf.

Cover the two loaves and leave in a warm place to rise (about 45 minutes). Bake on greased cookie sheet for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

GLAZE: 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar, 2 tablespoons hot water and 1 teaspoon melted butter.

Throw a couple of pods in the rice water to give the rice a great perfume. I learned that trick from my Portuguese friends.

I use it in everything. It's great in baked goods, pancakes, anything with a warm flavor, really. It's a must have for any Indian or Middle Eastern cooking. I think I go through cardamom faster than any other spice in my pantry. Oh, and it's used in a lot of Finnish recipes.

I add a 1/4 tsp. of cardamom to my strawberry-rhubarb compote. It's an absolutely perfect pairing. Try it out!

cardamom lemon ice cream. my new favorite ice cream to make

I like to toss a few pods in with basmati rice in my rice cooker. I also like to add some crushed pods to zucchini when sautéing. I've also experimented with adding crushed pods into the liquid when poaching chicken.

Chewing on a couple pods is good as a breath freshener. You'll sometimes see bowls of them by the register in Indian restaurants for exactly this purpose.

We use it in our swedish meatball recipe and it wouldn't be the same without it.

Add to whipped cream and server with baked fruit, nectarines and blackberrys are my favourites!

A pinch in gingersnaps, a bit in chicken marinade, anywhere I even remotely think it would be good :D Seriously, it goes with almost anything.

@empresscallipygos- Do you mean fennel? I've had fennel seeds after indian food but never cardamon. Of course, I could totally be wrong, chewing on cardamom could be tasty too.

My boyfriend's mother sprinkles ground cardamom on peaches, then throws them on the grill for a few minutes and serves with vanilla bean ice cream. I've never been a huge 'fruity-desserts' fan (choco-holic for life) but oh boy, did this convert me.

Two words: Rice pudding! You'll never go back!

Lemon-cardamom muffins!

Cardamom is my favorite spice ever. Probably because I grew up in an Indian household and we make lots of different things with it, it's definitely a multi-tasking and necessary ingredient to me. Try adding it to brownies along with some pistachios - I (sometimes) hate brownies but love that variation.
Also, this cake is awesome and easy : http://www.chow.com/recipes/12198-cardamom-spiced-carrot-cake-with-whipped-cream-cheese-frosting

Chana Masala, also peach and almond butter smoothies

A few whole cardamom pods, whole cloves, whole peppercorns, and a pinch of saffron or turmeric and a tablespoon of butter or ghee cooked in with white rice makes an amazing accompaniment to Indian dishes. One of my favorite things to make (taken from the tiny book "Cookshelf Indian").

@Odessaphile - They will have both. Some do, some don't.

We used to have yogurt, cut up banana, sugar, and ground cardamom as an after school snack.

Apple pie! You can just throw it in with cinnamon, or add several of your chai spices (like cloves) to make chai apple pie. I, too, have added cardamom to jellies/jams/fruit concoctions. The latest was an orange marmalade recipe via the Blue Chair Jam cookbook.

I open the pods and put some of the interior bits into the bottom of a glass of black tea. Mmmmm. You can filter them out if you don't like the texture at the end. But it's super yummy!

Also, cardamom ice cream. And I've put some pods into vodka to make cardamom flavored vodka for mixed drinks.

I used it for the Thai Coffee Bread Pudding posted recently (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/06/thai-coffee-bread-pudding-recipe.html) and it was fabulous! Also if you buy it at indian groceries it's not expensive at all!

My mom used to add the green shells of the cardamom to her jar of black tea, or her jar of sugar. It used to infuse them with cardamom flavour, truly a treat to the senses.
I toss them in a small sugar jar and always have cardamom sugar (like many have vanilla sugar) on hand.
So many fantastic suggestions in the comments for my favourite spice! The main thing to remember is that it works well in both sweet and savoury recipes.
(Great to try is also its ugly brother, black cardamom, which is much stronger and lends itself better to savoury dishes.) Like cinnamon or saffron, this fragrant spice elevates your recipe out of the ordinary!

Make Vinatarta! One of my favorite desserts I always had at the Icelandic side of my family's Christmas!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,166,140178-248192,00.html

In Sweden I had cinnamon cardamom sugar cookies with marzipan filling that were amazing.

Also, add another vote for putting it in coffee. Especially thick milky coffee.

my mom has always put a bit of dried black cardamom in mashed potatoes. its great and unexpected.

It´s amazing in chocolate chip cookies-- people most often can´t identify what is different exactly but they love them.
http://cocala.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-forgot_16.html

oh and i used to work at an ice cream place that made the best cardamom-black pepper ice cream (sounds nasty, ended up being my favorite)

A few pods crushed and then sprinkled over ratatouille before you roast it is to die for..

Cardamom is remarkably versatile and as a chef I find myself reaching for it more often than many other spices. It blends well with Ginger, Cinnamon, Cumin, Rose, Allspice, Nutmeg, Mace, Omani (dried/preserved ground Persian lemon).

Things I make that contain cardamom: Banana bread, Carrot Cake, Spice cake, Cardamom butter biscuits, shortbread, Snickerdoodles, chocolate ganache, Indian food, Persian food, Thai food, Apple pie, Peach pie, (and any desserty items containing apples or peaches). Ice creams, sorbets, sherbets, caramels, brittles, barks....

There are an endless number of things that benefit from cardamom in amounts from a pinch to a tablespoon.

And after reading the comments, I forgot to mention BROWNIES! Hell, YES!

Cardamom and carrots. Boil/steam your carrots until the carrots are tender and the water is almost gone, add a little butter, brown sugar and crushed cardamom and reduce to a glaze. Everyone remarks on it.

Add to rice along with cloves and bay leaves to make a pilaf. Make cardamom shortbread. Use as a spice in Bengali-style dal kicheree (mung bean/dal pilaf). Add judiciously instead of cinnamon to fruit crumbles, maybe also with nutmeg.

WOW! Best comments list EVah!

Just toss a few pods in your cup of hot tea, it's great.

In German spiced cookies
http://www.food.com/recipe/german-rosinenbroetchen-german-brandy-soaked-raisin-cookies-78839
I increase the cardamom in these.

In southeast Turkey, there is a strong coffee named "mırra" prepared with cardamom.

Pinch (so they split) 3 or 4 cardamom pods and put them in the coffee pot and let the coffee brew right on top of them. So good!

No one seems to have mentioned this yet, but if you have an Indian grocery in your area, you can go there for SUPER cheap cardamon. I think I pay something like $3 for a big quart-sized bag.

pear tarte tatin

Add it to ginger cookies (gingerbread, ginger snaps, etc.) for an added depth of flavor. This winter I added some cardamom to pumpkin bread and it was delicious!

Along the same lines as @engil, you can also get cardamom for low prices if you buy in in bulk - my local co-op has it in the bulk spice section. If I only need a few pods, that is all I buy and I usually end up spending less than $1. WAY more reasonably prices than the $15 jars at the supermarket!

I'm with babygrace - cardamom's very good in rice pudding. If you're feeling decadent, make it with sweetened condensed milk. :-)

Now that I think of it, I use it as a "layering" spice, usually with cinnamon. It's nice on French toast and cookies.