Inspiration, I need some

There's writer's block and painter's block and sometimes I get cook's block. Do you ever think you are in a cooking slump and just can't think of anything to put on the table except mac and cheese, again? There have been days when I thought I could just put a glass of wine and a couple of crackers in front of the kiddos and say "dinner is on". Ok, just kidding, I realize this is not the way it's done, so what to do?

Most days I center meals around one particular food or dish. Sometimes it's a vegetable or a salad or maybe a meat. For instance, the other day I had tacos on the brain. Now I didn't want regular every day tacos and it's really HOT in Kentucky right now so I didn't want a lot of heat in the kitchen. I found some shrimp in the freezer and had some cucumbers and other veggies. So I spicy seasoned the shrimp and roasted them quickly under the broiler, tossed them with cucumber, carrot and red onion and mixed up a light dressing of Greek Yogurt (better than sour cream) with a squeeze of lime juice. Then I looked around and realized I didn't have any tortillas for tacos, but I did have some pita pockets. Hey, it's just cooking, doesn't a pita pocket look like a taco shell? Add some leafy lettuce and fresh tomato and dinner is on. Now this is not at all what I envisioned but it turned out just fine.



So here's where embellishing really took over. You can be inspired by what you have around you, don't be afraid to change your mind. But sometimes mac and cheese is still a good thing.