Raiding the Pantry

I work from home, and sometimes I get ridiculous cravings for food that I don't have available. It doesn't help that recently I have been traveling so much that I haven't had really stocked up at the grocery store. Today I was craving something sweet. In particular, I was craving some chocolate peanut butter cake balls from a local food truck How Sweet It Is. Take note, when I say "some" I mean I was tempted to leave and go buy a pack of six and most likely end up eating all of them.

However, I resisted. Instead I decided to raid what little bit of food I have in my pantry and concoct a sweet treat creation. Keep in mind I was watching an episode of "The Next Food Network Star" where the contestants were placed in a "Chopped" like situation.

If you have never seen "Chopped" i'll give a quick synopsis: Four Chefs  get a basket with weird, crazy ingredients and they have to create an appetizer, main course and a dessert by incorporating each of the ingredients (usually 4). There is more to the show, but for the purposes of this blog, that's all the info you need.

So, Food Network Star/Chopped episode is on, giving me the inspiration to make something totally random of the ingredients I have. I grab the following:

• peanut butter
• coconut
• graham cracker crumbles that I froze forever ago
• rolled oats

I put all of those in a bowl (didn't measure anything) and combined. Tasted, wasn't totally satisfied so I explored my pantry some more and found some unsweetened cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Put a sprinkle and a splash of those and continued my mixing.

Once I was satisfied with my combination, I rolled them into balls, topped them with more coconut and put them in the fridge. Once the next commercial break hit, I went straight to my peanut butter babies. They were excellent. I am a huge fan of peanut butter, so these little things hit the spot.

I also found a box of instant pudding in my pantry. I dusted off some cobwebs and said "Eh, why not." Ok there weren't really cobwebs, but I know that pudding was there for a long time.  I know instant pudding calls for milk, I only drink almond milk, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. Well lo and behold, I only have half the amount of "milk" the directions called for.... so I decided to add just a 1/2 cup of water because I really couldn't figure out or have any other kind of subsitute.

Let's just say that pudding is still "setting" in my fridge. I am not sure if it will be good enough to eat, or if I should even bother eating it. I am not really a fan of instant pudding but I needed to finsih off the rest of my almond milk and that pudding mix probably would have sit in my pantry till, well forever.

So next time you are craving something, take a peak in your pantry and get creative before heading out and spending your money. Don't be scared to just throw some things together. I know that might be hard for some people, but if there are several main ingredients you like, then most likely you will like them combined in one form or another