Dang, I wish I'd come up with this information on my own. Truth is though, nothing's new under the sun, and the world is full of brilliant people coming up with new twists on old themes every day of the week. Here's a brilliant new twist on a standard kitchen tool, straight from last month's Care2 newsletter that everybody ought to know about: Pizza stones do more than bake pizzas!

Sure, if you want your pizza to taste as good as your favorite neighborhood joints' version, the pizza stone is your answer. Also known as a baking stone, it helps regulate your oven's heat; it also absorbs heat, and allows your pizza to be baked at a higher temperature - a surefire way to get a great-tasting pie with an amazing crust-thinner, crispier, and more browned than with most other baking methods.

But here's the brilliance: These perks work into other foods as well. Breads, cookies(note these gorgeous Snickerdoodles in the photo) and strudels are popular options; but that's only the half of it. Look at what else Katie Waldeck, author for Care2, says you can do with a pizza stone:

1. Roasted Vegetables. For ultra-crispy roasted veggies, use a pizza stone instead of the standard baking sheet. Place cut veggies in a bowl, toss lightly with olive oil and any desired seasonings, and roast on a pre-heated pizza stone, flipping halfway through cooking.

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2. Crackers. Crackers are supposed to be crispy, and a pizza stone is the best way to make this happen.

3. Crescent rolls. The color on the tops and bottoms of the rolls are the same and the bottoms are not burned! Hard to do with a standard baking sheet.

4. Leftovers. Pizza stones work great on yesterday's dinner, too. Leftover pizza is the obvious option, but leftover fried foods, roasted veggies, empanadas, quesadillas and any other type of turnover reheats very well on a pizza stone.

5. Healthier "Fried" Foods. If you want the taste of deep-fried foods, but not all that extra fat, try a pizza stone in lieu of a regular baking sheet. Skip preheating the stone here, lightly toss whatever you're baking with oil, and turn halfway through baking.

6. Sweet Potato Chips. It's hard to get DIY potato chips right because the window of time between limp and burnt is just so short. Plus, when you're making so many at once, it can be difficult to get them all at the right consistency. What you're often left with is an array of doneness: plenty of soggy chips, even more charred chips, and a precious few perfectly crunchy. Baking chips on a pizza stone, however, will help you get an even batch every time, and it helps cut down on calories because you don't need to use nearly as much oil. It's best to not preheat the stone.

7. Frozen Foods. Experience what frozen foods are actually supposed to taste like: crispy, fresh and delicious! One of the perks of using a baking stone to heat frozen foods is that it helps absorb the ice crystals that other baking methods just can't do. Like several of these recipes, avoid preheating the stone when heating frozen foods - the temperature difference can damage it.

8. Grilled Cheese for a Crowd. This method isn't a poor imitation of a grilled cheese - it's the best method! For my tastes, stovetop grilled cheese is a little too heavy, and oven grilled cheese is a little to, well, light. By combining the two, your result is a perfectly-buttery, and ultra-crispy sandwich. Though it's a little too time-consuming for a solo dinner, it's a great way to make grilled cheese for a crowd.

Preheat the oven, with the stone inside, to 400 degrees F. Melt butter in a large skillet, add bread slices and toast until lightly browned. Once you've brown all of the bread, assemble each sandwich, transfer to baking stone, and bake until the cheese has melted, about 7 minutes.