How to Be Creative When you are Cooking

Have you ever been in the kitchen ready to eat and realized you don't have your favorite sauce or dip for dinner. This happened to me recently when my family was sitting down to beer battered Walleye from a recent fishing trip. We had no tartar sauce. So I opened the regenerator and selected mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon and dill pickle relish.

I then mixed the four together and sprinkled in a little fish rub from the pantry. We had instant tartar sauce and really tasty fish. When you are in your kitchen don't be afraid to experiment a bit. Try a homemade barbeque sauce if you are out of your favorite bottled variety. Mix ketchup, and dry mustard with molasses and a dash or two of pepper.

If it is a salad you desire here is a quick and easy oriental chicken salad. Toss some lettuce into a bowl next chop leftover chicken into bite size pieces and sprinkle on top of the lettuce. Whisk together in a separate bowl sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, a spoon full of Hoisin sauce and a dash of oyster sauce. Pour over the salad and toss.

If you have any fresh veggies on hand toss those in as well. Finally a dessert quick substitution. When you want hot fudge sundaes and are out of fudge sauce try melting chocolate cake frosting. Pour the warmed cake frosting over ice cream and you have quick and easy hot fudge sundaes.

If you really like to mix things up try melting a different flavor of cake frosting. Little children enjoy using confetti cake frosting, this way they have sauce for the ice cream with sprinkles built in. .

By: Shauna Hanus