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When it comes to cre­ating de­licious, healthful dishes, from-scratch recipes can't be topped. But even the best of cooks don't always do ev­ery­thing the hard way.

When we asked some local cooking teach­ers, caterers and blog­gers if they had fa­vorite short-cut conve­nience food, they owned up to a few very useful prod­ucts. They shared recipes that combined good fresh ingre­di­ents with frozen items or foods from cartons, cans and jars, so you can serve good food faster.

Rita Heikenfeld, a local herbalist, food writ­er and healthy-living expert, shared a recipe for a great party ap­pe­tizer. She first got the recipe about 15 years ago from a cooking teach­er and pub­lished it. Her readers said that combining cream cheese and butter and lots of washed, dried and chopped herbs and garlic took a lit­tle too much work. So Heikenfeld cre­ated a quick ver­sion that starts with Boursin cheese spread, with garlic and herbs already in it. She always adds a few fresh herbs: dill or parsley in the winter, fresh ed­ible flowers when they're in sea­son.

Oth­er ideas that came up: roast­ed, jarred red pep­pers, demi-glace con­centrate, frozen Asian dumplings, cheese spread, pizza dough, - and the old­est conve­nience food in the book, canned mush­room soup (in its low-fat ver­sion). But none of these dishes seem pre-fab or overly processed, combined as they are with fresh ingre­di­ents.

Belgian Endive Wa­ter Lily

2 cartons herb spread, such as Boursin or Rondale

½ stick butter

8-ounce. cream cheese, soft­ened

3-4 heads Belgian endive

Mix the spread, butter and cream cheese togeth­er thor­oughly Throw in a handful of finely chopped parsley if you have it. Blend all togeth­er well.

Wash endive. Sep­a­rate endive leaves by cutting root end off. Place herb cheese mix­ture on round plat­ter. Shape into slightly mounded disk. In­sert largest leaves on bottom of mound, working your way around in a circle. The next layer use small­er leaves, in­serting them so that petals be­gin to form. Keep in­serting leaves until you get to the top of the mound. Gar­nish with ed­ible flowers such as pansies, vio­las, vio­lets, carnations, fuchsias, mums, roses, day lilies, impa­tiens, petunias, etc. Or just sprinkle parsley or what­ev­er fresh herb you have, minced, on top.

Guests can pull out leaves, which will have the spread on the end. You can con­tinue to fill in the empty spots if you like, keeping the pretty flower shape intact longer. And that way, no one has to dou­ble-dip.

www.abouteating.com

Chicken Dia­blo

Rita Heikenfeld also shared this recipe from her friend Car­ol Vanover, who of­ten helps her with classes, and has en­g­i­neered many low-fat recipes.

1 can low fat condensed cream of mush­room soup

¾ cup salsa

¼ tsp. cumin

6 bone­less skin­less chicken breast halves

1 (14 oz.) can quar­tered artichoke hearts, drained

1 (2¼ oz.) can sliced black olives, drained

2 ta­blespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Salt and pep­per

In medium bowl, mix soup, salsa and cumin, set aside. Arrange chicken in a 9x13 baking dish.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Arrange artichoke quar­ters around chicken. Pour soup mix­ture over top, sprinkle with olives. Bake an additional 25 to 30 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

Sea­son with salt and fresh ground pep­per to taste.

Sprinkle casse­role with chopped cilantro.

Vanover says she serves this with Mexican-style rice. Makes 6 servings.

Ch­inese Dumpling Soup

Amy Tobin, di­rector of EQ Cooking School at the Party Source, loves Ch­inese dumplings. She serves them as ap­pe­tizers or snacks, and uses them in this soup recipe. "It can be a pantry meal if you keep the right things on hand," she says.

6 cups chicken broth

½ head napa cabbage or bok choy, thinly sliced

2 cups sliced mush­rooms

1 ta­blespoon finely grated fresh gin­ger

1 ta­blespoon soy sauce

½ tea­spoon crushed red pep­per flakes

½ cup frozen peas

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1 tea­spoon sesame oil

1 16-ounce package frozen pot stickers

Dash of roost­er sauce (Asian hot sauce)

Bring chicken broth to a boil in a large soup pot. Add cabbage and mush­rooms. Boil, uncovered and stirring occa­sion­ally, for 3 minutes. Stir in grated gin­ger, soy sauce, red pep­per flakes, peas, green onions and sesame oil. Return to a boil. Stir in dumplings, cook 3 minutes. Add a dash of hot sauce, if desired. Serves 4.

Ital­ian Sausage Soup with Cannelli­ni Beans and Spinach

Leigh Barnhart Ochs, di­rector of Jungle Jim's Cooking School, says one of her fa­vorite conve­nience items is frozen, pre-cooked brown rice, which microwaves in 3 minutes.

Here's her recipe that uses a number of conve­nience items: canned broth, tomatoes and beans along with pur­chased spaghetti sauce and frozen spinach.

½ pound sweet Ital­ian sausage, cas­ing re­moved

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 14-ounce can chicken broth

1 15-ounce can Ital­ian-style diced tomatoes

1 15-ounce can cannelli­ni beans, rin­sed and drained

16 ounces (2 cups) spaghetti sauce

5 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed, squeezed dry

1 tea­spoon dried Ital­ian seasoning

¾ tea­spoon salt

1/8 tea­spoon crushed red pep­per flakes, or to taste

Shredded Parmesan cheese, for gar­nish

Brown sausage in a large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat; stir in onion and garlic; cook while stirring until soft, about 3 minutes. Drain excess fat. Stir in re­main­ing ingre­di­ents, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with Parmesan cheese. Serves 4-6.

Lemon Blueberry Poppy Seed Bread

Here are two from sous-chefs at Jungle Jim's. This is a fam­ily fa­vorite from Ellen Mueller.

1 package Duncan Hines Bakery Style blueberry muf­fin mix

2 ta­blespoons poppy seeds

1 egg

¾ cup wa­ter

1 ta­blespoon grated lemon peel

Drizzle:

½ cup con­fectioners sugar

1 ta­blespoon fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour and 8½ x 4½ x 2½ loaf pan.

Rin­se blueberries from mix with cold wa­ter and drain. For bread, combine muf­fin mix and poppy seeds in medium bowl. Break up any lumps. Add egg and wa­ter. Stir until mois­t­ened, about 50 strokes. Fold in blueberries and lemon peel. Pour into pan. Sprinkle with the con­tents of topping packet from mix.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until toothpick in­serted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Then loosen loaf from pan, invert onto cool­ing rack, then turn right-side up. Cool completely.

For drizzle, combine con­fectioners' sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over loaf.

Makes 1 loaf, 12 slices.

Cheese Zuc­ch­i­ni and Onion Flat Bread

This is a short­cut to a nice-looking party ap­pe­tizer from Su­san Diehl.

10-ounce tube refrig­erated pizza dough

¾ cup garlic and herb spread, such as Boursin or Alou­ette

¾ cup Parmesan cheese, di­vided

3 ta­blespoons chopped Ital­ian parsley

1 small red onion

1 medium zuc­ch­i­ni, cut cross­wise into 1/8 inch thick rounds

Olive oil for brush­ing

Salt and pep­per, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parch­ment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Unroll pizza dough onto parch­ment. Spread half of the herb cream cheese over one long half of the dough, leav­ing ½ inch plain bor­der. Sprinkle with half of the Parmesan cheese and 2 ta­blespoons of the parsley.

Us­ing the parch­ment paper as an aid, fold the plain half of the dough over the filled half. Do not seal the edges. Spread the re­main­ing herb cheese over the top and sprinkle with the re­main­ing Parmesan cheese.

Peel onion and cut into 1/8-inch slices. Arrange a row of zuc­ch­i­ni down the one long side of the dough. Arrange the onion slices in a row next to the zuc­ch­i­ni. Arrange one more row of zuc­ch­i­ni slices next to the onion row. Brush vegeta­bles with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pep­per. Bake until puffed and deep gold­en brown at edges, about 24 minutes. Re­move from oven and sprinkle with re­main­ing 1 ta­blespoon of Ital­ian parsley. Cool slightly and cut into slices.

Red Wine Mush­room Sauce

Courtney Tsi­touris, who's at­tending the Midwest Culinary In­stitute and writes a blog called Epiven­tures, uses packaged demi-glace for pan sauces. Make it in the pan you've pan-fried steak in, or build it from scratch and pour it over grilled or broiled steak. www.Epi-ven­tures.com

2 ta­blespoons butter

2 shallots, minced

8-10 ounces sliced fresh mush­rooms

½ cup red wine (good quality)

2 cups hot beef stock, low sodium (or hot wa­ter)

1 ounce demi-glace

Salt and pep­per, to taste

Chopped chives (optional)

Melt butter in a sauce pan and sauté shallots until translu­cent. Add mush­rooms and sauté until gold­en brown. Add red wine, bring to simmer and reduce to 2 ta­blespoons. Add stock and bring to simmer. Add demi-glace and stir with a whisk until dis­solved and sauce is thickened. Sea­son with salt and pep­per. Pour over steak. Optional: Gar­nish with chives. Serves 3-4.

Roast­ed Red Pep­per Sauce (Romesco)

Caterer and cooking teach­er Jean Strass­er loves roast­ed red pep­pers in a jar, which she purees for pasta sauce or soup, or for this de­licious sauce. "I usu­ally find roast­ed red pep­pers at the dollar store and stock up," she says.

½ cup unsalted almonds or walnuts

2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled

1 large jar (12-15 ounces) roast­ed red pep­pers, drained

2 ta­blespoons red wine vinegar

1 tea­spoon each: sugar, salt and an­cho chile pow­der

½ cup olive oil.

In a blender, pulse the almonds and garlic until finely chopped. Add the pep­pers, red wine vinegar, sugar, salt and an­cho chile pow­der and blend. With the ma­ch­ine running, drizzle in the olive oil and puree until the sauce is smooth. Serve at room tempera­ture with grilled or sautéed chicken, fish, pork or vegeta­bles.

Spicy Garlic Beer Cheese

Caterer and cookbook writ­er Maggie Green's "Kentucky Fresh Cookbook" is about to be re­leased by the Uni­versity Press of Kentucky. Here's a Kentucky fa­vorite from it, which starts with cheddar spread. For more: www.greenapron.com.

1 14-ounce tub sharp cheddar spread, such as Merkts Wisconsin, at room tempera­ture

8 ounces (2 cups) shredded sharp cheddar, at room tempera­ture

4 ounces Neufcha­tel or cream cheese, soft­ened

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 ta­blespoon hot red pep­per sauce

3 dashes Worces­tershire sauce

¼ tea­spoon cayenne pep­per

½ cup flat beer (leave overnight, pour beer be­tween two glasses repeatedly to make sure it's flat)

With an electric mixer, beat the cheddar spread, shredded cheddar and cream cheese until well blended. Add the garlic, hot red pep­per sauce, Worces­tershire sauce and cayenne pep­per, and beat until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. With the mixer running, add the beer in a slow, steady stream, mixing slowly until creamy and well-blended.

Scrape into a stor­age con­tainer and refrig­erate to hard­en the cheese and al­low the fla­vors to bloom.