By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate

Is your pantry due for a summer cleaning? Your refrigerator ready to bust? If so, consider creatively recycling some of your extras into scintillating – and simple – summer sundaes.

Too often the once-special sundae has become something so mundane it might as well be called a “Thursday”: vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, chopped peanuts and whipped cream with a lonely maraschino cherry on top. There’s no reason, though, the sundae can’t be a showcase for foodies and gourmets – and, since preparation can be so easy, for lazy-day poolside loafers as well.

Gia Giasullo and Peter Freeman, sister-and-brother owners of New York’s Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, did just that when they found themselves with bags of broken pretzel rods that are usually served full-size with egg creams.

Instead they tossed the petite pieces into sundaes, decided caramel sauce would be the best pair with the salty intruder and their “Sundae of Broken Dreams” was born. It’s been a staple on the menu since then and the contrast of salty and sweet has gotten it named to some of New York City’s best summer dessert lists. It’s also included in “The Soda Fountain,” their first cookbook.

Depending on what you choose to add (such as fruit or sugar-free toppings), your special treat might just qualify as a health food item as well. Since the add-ons are a last, moderate touch, they also usually only ending up costing cents per serving.

Other than Giasullo and Freeman’s pretzel brainstorm, following are a few other ideas for “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” sundaes:

• Sugar-free frozen yogurt or sorbet, homemade or store-bought preserved lemons, orange marmalade, chopped pistachios and whipped cream tinged with tangerine zest.

• Sugar-free coffee ice cream, caramel corn (or try kettle corn, for a still sweet, but less sugary treat), butterscotch sauce, chopped pecans and whipped cream tinged with ground cinnamon.

• Sugar-free vanilla frozen yogurt, chunks of cheesecake (or for possibly lower calories use chunks of diet or tofu-based ice cream sandwiches), golden raisins, raspberry syrup, chopped macadamia nuts and whipped cream with halved fresh raspberries mixed in.

• Sugar-free cherry ice, dried cherries, sugar-free chocolate sauce, roasted pumpkin seeds and whipped cream tinged with pomegranate juice.

Fun fare like this also proves food preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun – and fast. They take just 10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!

Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you – or your kidlet helpers – choose to use can’t help but draw “wows” from family members and guests.

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK:  If you have soup delivered as part of a takeout meal, or if you are heating up your own homemade soup as a leftover, be sure to heat it to the boiling point before then cooling it enough to eat. You can’t know how long soup may have been sitting in a pot at a restaurant – and at what temperature -- or in a delivery vehicle. If you are going to consume such an item, bringing it to a boil is one way to have a chance of warding off potential problems. 

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.