Old Ingredients, New Dishes

Ever look into your pantry or fridge and just sigh? You're faced with the same boring ingredients day after day , year after year? Do you feel like you're boxed into making the same dishes?Then revamp your cooking. Use the same old stuff but in a different dish? You'd be surprised at what you can come up with.

Rice and cornmeal can be pretty boring. They do make a great aides for dishes like gumbo and the latter for chicken cacciatore. However they are also wonderful at the bottom of a chili bowl. Their creamy blandness is the perfect foil for any chili's fieriness and chunky texture.Pasta too is great with traditional sauces but you can also use it to make a zesty low mein or even fried into Chinese birds nests to house creations like Szechuan beef or curried chicken. Veggies , usually reserved for salads and sides can make wonderful grilled kabobs . Try onion peppers and grape tomatoes for a fun and new hors d"oeuvre.

Sweets also can turn run of the mill. Those Lorna Doone and Social Tea cookies can be used instead of Nilla wafers for ice box puddings.Even the wafers, especially the new multicolored ones, are a neat for layering in a trifle or individual parfaits. Take a plain chocolate bar. Scrape it along a hasp and then add it to softened plain vanilla ice cream to create stratichella, Italian chocolate chip ice cream. You can also add it to puddings for some extra crunch. That ho hum fruit bowl can be made into a dozen different things to help you come up with fun snacks and desserts.

Boring ingredients don;t have to be boring. Think outside the cookbook for once and try your own hand at creating novel dishes. it;s a fun way to approach the ordinary!