Apath-eat - What to do when your pantry leaves you uninspired

Fact: I adore trying new recipes (so I can gobble them right up, of course).
Myth: I'm good at making grocery lists that include everything on a recipe.

Oh, see how that might not work out well?

It's frustrating and leaves our kitchen bursting with a menagerie of spices, powders, sauces, meats, veggies and other ingredients. Turns out, buying a big bottle of something when the recipe calls for just a pinch is my other hobby, aside from completely forgetting key ingredients and then abandoning a recipe all together.

Fact: The mister and I watch three things: Food Network, Wheel of Fortune and Golden Girls.
Myth: We are secretly 90 years old.

Anywho, we've been hooked on Chopped with Ted Allen for a while. Chefs get baskets of hideously mismatched ingredients and make the best of it. See where we are heading?

We were making pizza for a friend using the tastiest dough recipe ever, from My Bread, and had some extra dough. What to do, what to do, right?

Enter: my genius. I suggested we write down some of the unloved ingredients on scraps of paper and choose three to become our second pizza. Possibly my best idea of 2010 (so far). We pulled parsley, garbanzo beans and bacon - thus creating the Italian Prairie Hog. We infused the parsley in olive oil, chopped the beans and topped with bacon bits. I know, it sounds a little bizarre, but it really worked! The parsley brightened up the beans and the bacon added a nice crunch and saltiness to the whole thing. A little manchego left over from our wedding cake topped the whole thing off with a little extra salty richness.
Added bonus: we finished the fresh parsley that would have otherwise been tossed, my pantry is one can lighter and there was bacon involved in yet another dinner.

We're doing this again! It's perfect for clearing things out, using up leftovers and curing the occasional food boredom.