One of my favorite things to do is take restaurant menus and use them for inspiration to create recipes at home. It allows us to enjoy a restaurant meal in our own home at a fraction of the cost and allows us to experience restaurants we aren’t able to visit on a regular basis. So today when I received the Candle Cafe Newsletter with their Spring 2011 menu I was inspired by one of their sandwiches:
Instead of making a BBQ Tempeh & Sweet Potato Sandwich I made a BBQ Sweet Potato and Black Bean Sandwich. I baked the sweet potato and glazed it with BBQ sauce. I grilled the kale and red onion on our little George Forman Grill and I whipped up a variation of my smoked paprika aioli, I added roasted garlic and roasted shallot to the aioli- YUM!. I then layered up the sandwiches and grilled them on the George Forman Grill to make them nice and toasty and served a green salad along side.
Q: Where do you find recipe inspiration?
Most of my inspiration comes from some ingredient combination that randomly pops into my head and I think will be good or, “I have this, this, and this… now what do I make for dinner?” I pull little inspirations from all kinds of places, though. Food is everywhere! 🙂 We just almost never eat out (4 or 5 times a year, maybe?), so that’s the only reason restaurant menus don’t top my inspiration list.
I’m most often inspired by recipes I find on websites, blogs and cookbooks. I seem to have a talent of knowing when a recipe will taste good, and what variations will work. I often use a completely new recipe for dinners for guests and it almost always works out great! Sometimes, I’ll be inspired by the ingredients in the fridge that need to be used.