Personalize Convenience Foods by Adding a Few Extra Ingredients

Professional cooks know a dash of this and a pinch of that brings out flavor. These little additions are often secret. Other additions, like adding freshly-ground peper to raspberries, are more obvious. I love to cook and most of the meals I fix for my family are homemade. But when I am pressed for time, I will use convenience foods, and many excellent products are available.

Before a product reaches store shelves, the company spends thousands of dollars on product development, taste tests, and test marketing. The result is a product with broad appeal. Most convenience foods taste good. You can make them taste even better by adding pure extracts, fresh herbs, spices, fruit juice, and zest. One small addition can make quick fix products taste like homemade. These additions also make your made-from-scratch recipes taste better. Here are 20 ideas.

* 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract to corn muffin mix

* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract to a small box of vanilla pudding

* 2 tablespoons dry sherry to cream sauce for chicken or turkey

* 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon garlic pepper , 1/2 teaspoon chili powder to a tray of frozen

French fries

* 2 tablespoons sugar-free orange marmalade to barbecue sauce

* 2 tablespoons extra strong cold coffee to chocolate cake mix

* 1/2 cup sugar-free vanilla syrup to a bowl of mixed fresh fruit

* 1/2 teaspoon (or more) curry powder to egg salad

* 1 teaspoon coffee granules to small box of chocolate pudding

* 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme and 1/4 teaspoon garlic power to beef gravy

* 1 teaspoon crushed rosemary to popover mix

* 2 tablespoons ketchup to a kettle of vegetable and/or beef-based soup

* 2 tablespoons light cream cheese to cream sauce

* 1 teaspoon lemon zest to blueberry muffin mix

* 1/2 cup red wine to spaghetti sauce

* 1/2 cup sliced almonds to muffin mix

* 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar-free marmalade to pork sauce/gravy

* 1/3 cup mango chutney to chicken or turkey salad

* 1/2 cup salsa to a batch of chili

* 2 tablespoons cocoa powder to angel food cake mix

For me, cooking is an adventure, and I rarely make a recipe exactly as written. When it comes to cooking, I follow Julia Child's example. "The only real stumbling block is fear of failure," she once said. "In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." So the next time you use a convenicnce product add a few extra ingredients. You may be surprised at the results!

Copyright 2009 by Harriet Hodgson