Sunday: A Scrounge-the-Fridge Lunch, Costco Restock & A New Favorite Salmon

This morning was a pretty basic Sunday morning.

The kids finished off the last of the bacon we had in the refrigerator, along with cereal and toast.

Nothing exciting, but tomorrow is Labor Day, so I’m thinking we’ll do breakfast up a little more then. Maybe waffles.

Today, though, I needed groceries.

Somehow We Fed Seven People With “No Food”

I had planned to get to Costco this morning, but it just didn’t happen. I ended up going later in the afternoon instead.

Which meant when lunchtime rolled around, we were officially in scrounge mode.

And I’m not going to lie: yesterday’s lunch was a little scroungy too.

I basically opened the refrigerator and pulled out anything that could remotely be turned into food.

And you know what?

We fed seven people a perfectly decent lunch.

My teen claimed the one remaining portion of yesterday’s brat-and-Rao’s mixture and had that with some of the leftover pasta.

I warmed up the last of the plain brat bites for some of the other kids and pulled chicken nuggets from the freezer to fill in the gaps. I even had 2 small pieces of focaccia pizza that I cut into 4 small pieces to share amongst the kids.

They ended up with some combination of:

• Brat bites
• Chicken nuggets
• The last of the cooked pasta
• Fresh vegetables
• Fruit

That’s lunch.

For Chris and me, I used some of the steak my mom sent home last night.

I sliced it thin, got a pan really hot with a little fat and quickly seared the steak just long enough to heat it and crisp up some of those edges.

I had mine with a random vegetable salad my mom had sent home, some extra vegetables and salsa.

There was some leftover rice in the fridge from Wednesday night, so Chris got that and basically made himself a steak-fajita-style platter.

Seven people fed.

From a refrigerator I would have told you contained no food.

Sometimes I Want the Refrigerator to Get Empty

Of course, I could have gone into my freezer and pulled out more food.

I have plenty of dinner insurance in there.

But I actually wanted to get rid of all this stuff.

A little pasta. One serving of Rao’s. A few brat bites. A scoop of rice. Leftover steak. Random vegetables.

None of it was enough to become another family dinner on its own, but together it fed everybody.

And then I could go to Costco and actually restock instead of putting a bunch of brand-new food in front of a refrigerator full of odds and ends.

Costco Protein Restock

I finally made it to Costco this afternoon and restocked the refrigerator.

For protein this week, I bought:

• Chicken breasts
• Ground beef
• Salmon
• Flank steak

Chicken breast and ground beef are pretty much standards for me. I can take either one in a million directions.

Salmon gave me dinner tonight.

And flank steak will be a fun Labor Day grilled dinner. I also noticed Costco has the Gladware containers I like to use when I take food to people. They’re on sale right now!!

Once we got everything home and put away, we headed to the pool.

So dinner ended up being a little later tonight.

Trying Something New With Salmon

I decided to experiment with the salmon tonight, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to commit the entire piece of salmon to the experiment.

So I cut it in half.

First, I seasoned the entire salmon with:

• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Fresh lemon juice

Then I finished each half differently.

On one half, I made my normal version and added dried dill.

Easy. Familiar. We know we like it.

But on the other half, I tried something completely different.

Honey-Ginger Salmon

I took a serrated knife and lightly scored a hashtag pattern across the top of the salmon.

Then I mixed together:

• Honey
• Liquid aminos
• Sesame oil
• Freshly grated ginger

I brushed that mixture all over the scored salmon so it could get down into those little cuts.

Then I baked everything in my convection oven at 400°F.

And this version was GOOD.

I still like my regular lemon-and-dill salmon, but the honey-ginger version might have been my favorite tonight.

Sweet, salty, gingery, a little sesame—it was delicious.

Definitely one I’m making again.

The Rest of Dinner Was Mostly Leftovers

The funny thing is that even after going to Costco and completely restocking, almost everything else on tonight’s dinner table came from food we already had.

I had leftover roasted potatoes from my parents’ house last night, so those went onto a sheet pan to reheat.

I still had some roasted vegetables from Friday night’s dinner, plus fresh green beans my mom had sent home. I combined those in a sauté pan and warmed everything together.

I boiled some of the fresh corn on the cob I’d just bought.

And then I found the very last of the rice from Wednesday night’s stir-fry and reheated that in the microwave.

So dinner was fresh salmon surrounded by a whole bunch of food that needed to leave my refrigerator.

Tomorrow’s Lunch Is Already Calling My Name

And now I’m particularly excited that we have leftover salmon.

I’m already thinking about tomorrow.

Cold salmon, a little rice, seaweed, maybe some rice wine vinegar and liquid aminos—basically little deconstructed sushi bites.

That sounds so good.

But first, Labor Day breakfast.

I think after this morning’s cereal-and-last-of-the-bacon situation, we can probably manage some waffles.