Play With Your Food…

…I can’t say to LITERALLY play with your food, but play around with your food ideas!  Take something that you know as a staple (like Shepherd’s Pie) and give it a few little tweaks and twists to change it up.  Today, I swapped corn, black bean, jalepenos, and cilantro for the traditional carrots, celery, peas, and thyme.  I also added some cumin to the mix to bring out a smoky, southwestern flavor.

Playing with your food - to me - is the best part of cooking – it’s where your true creativity gets to shine through.  It also helps to break up the mundane-ness of making something from your recipe arsenal.  Even as a chef, I get bored making the same things over and over again.  So, sometimes I like to look and see what I have on hand, then flip through my cookbooks and get ideas for dishes.  Today it was ground turkey, cilantro, and potatoes in the cupboard.  So I had to run to the store and fill in the gaps, but now we are gonna have something a little bit different.  After all, when was the last time you saw “Southwestern Shepherd’s Pie” on a menu or in a recipe book? (but, if it works out, I’ll happily be posting the recipe on here!)

The point – you don’t have to be boring when making dinner – take charge of the food and make something fun and new for yourself and your family.  Now time to see how it came out!

Keep cooking, and leaving me comments!