Creative Early Dinner Ideas

Shaped Sandwiches and Fun Side Dishes

• Serve grilled cheese or turkey panini sandwiches with soup or salad early, when you want to go out later or make sure everyone is in bed early. Make the sandwiches and then use large star, heart, teddy bear, dinosaur, dog and cat cookie cutters to mold each sandwich into a different shapes. Serve this dish with a creative salad or soup made with dinosaur noodle shapes.
  
  

Garnishes and Edible Decor

• You can make simple dishes more appealing by using floral and standard garnishes to add more creativity to the food. Decorate the border of plates on the table or the border of the dish holding your roasted duck or turkey with orchid flower heads, parsley or miniature ornamental cabbage heads. You can also make edible napkin rings out of bread dough and Wilton's edible glitter. Thaw the dough and then mold it into circular rings. Coat the rings in butter or cooking spray and sprinkle edible glitter on top.
  
  

Pizza Faces

• Prepare one large frozen pizza or make several mini pizzas featuring faces. Cook the pizza half way, take it out to put the faces on and then put it back in the oven to finish cooking. Use tomatoes, olives, green peppers and other toppings to make a face. Cut out two large circular pieces from a tomato and place these on the top part of the pizza to serve as the eyes. Cut smaller tomatoes and olive pieces to make small faces on the mini pizzas.
  
  

Salad Ideas

• Make a salad on a separate plate that mimics a flower rather than just serving salad in a bowl. Place a tomato in the middle to resemble the center of a flower. Cut circular cucumber pieces and place these around the border of the tomato in several layers. Place a celery stalk on the plate, directly under the tomato. Adorn the exterior of the stalk with spinach leaves to resemble regular flower leaves.