Current Fridge Protein & Leftover Inventory (Start of Day)
Leftover cooked bacon
Remaining taco meat from Taco Tuesday
Roasted chicken from Monday night – LOTS!
Homemade chicken drippings/broth components from Monday’s roast chickens
Leftover rice pilaf with vegetables
Small amount of leftover mashed potatoes
Fresh vegetables and salad ingredients
Leftovers from the Mexican dinner last night
Morning
Breakfast this morning was all about using up yesterday’s bacon.
We had:
- leftover bacon
- toast
One of my daughters once again had her favorite baked potato with butter, garlic salt, and bacon.
My teen made herself a much fancier breakfast situation:
avocado toast with bacon and cheese.
This has nothing to do with food….but my 3 year old woke up early and saw me using my curling iron. She asked me to curl her hair, so I pulled out my super tiny hair curler…look how cute and fluffy her hair is!
Morning Prep — Bone Broth Day
First thing this morning, I finally dealt with all the leftover bones, skin, and drippings from Monday’s roasted chickens.
I had the stock pot sitting down in the basement fridge, so I pulled it upstairs, covered everything with water, and let it simmer all day long on the stove for homemade bone broth.
One of my favorite kitchen habits is trying to stretch ingredients one more step:
- first the roast chicken dinner
- then leftovers
- then soup
- then broth
It makes the kitchen feel like it’s really working for us.
Lunch — Mexican Leftovers Round Two
Lunch today was basically “everyone pick your favorite version of Taco Tuesday leftovers.”
My teen made herself a quesadilla.
I did a taco salad.
One of the kids made a full Mexican bowl with:
- rice
- taco meat
- avocado
- chips
- avocado salsa
- red onion
My boys made nachos.
Honestly, the taco meat prep from Monday just continues to pay off.
And the best part:
we STILL have taco meat left, which I’m pretty sure we’ll use again Friday night when I pack food to take with us to my nephew’s baseball game.
That’s exactly the kind of protein prep return-on-investment I’m always aiming for.
Afternoon — Travel Snack Prep and Teen Cooking
This afternoon I pulled the very last log of homemade beef summer sausage out of the freezer.
Definitely adding “make more summer sausage” to next week’s list because I absolutely want that stocked for our upcoming trip to Charleston.
Tomorrow we’re heading to a park playdate, and while I’m not planning to bring a full lunch, I KNOW the kids will want snacks.
So I wanted something with actual staying power:
protein-heavy snack plates instead of endless snack foods that disappear in five minutes.
The summer sausage will be perfect for that.
My teen baked some lemon blueberry muffins while I was out running errands. I REALLY try to say yes whenever a kid asks to cook…it’s an important skill and I want all my kids to leave home knowing at last the basics. Her muffins turned out great…and she had a MESS to clean up too! I realized that bowl/spoon/measuring cup efficiency is something we need to work on!
Dinner — Leftovers Becoming Something New
Dinner tonight was one of my favorite kinds of kitchen wins:
using leftovers in a completely different form so nobody feels like they’re just eating repeats again.
Once the broth had simmered all day, I strained everything out and discarded the bones and skin.
Then I:
- returned about half the broth to the stove
- added a squeeze of lemon juice
- added leftover rice pilaf from Monday
- added the small amount of leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday
- added roasted chicken from Monday
And suddenly:
chicken rice soup.
The best part is I didn’t have to dice a single vegetable because all the vegetables were already in the rice pilaf from earlier in the week.
Why chop them twice?
Now of course, I do have some children who claim not to like soup.
I genuinely do not understand this… but we adapt.
So for them, I simply:
- warmed extra broth separately
- heated chicken on its own
- served everything more deconstructed
We also had:
- side salads
- warmed Costco naan bread
And my teen made blueberry lemon muffins this afternoon while I was out running errands, so we had those alongside dinner too.
Honestly, it ended up being one of those really cozy dinners that came together with almost no stress because the kitchen groundwork had already been done earlier in the week.
Post-Dinner / Looking Ahead
What’s in the fridge/freezer now:
Remaining taco meat
About one cup roasted chicken left
Fresh homemade chicken broth
Chicken rice soup leftovers going with my husband for lunch tomorrow
Homemade beef summer sausage thawing for tomorrow
Fresh vegetables and salad ingredients
At this point, the roasted chickens from Monday have stretched INCREDIBLY far:
- roast chicken dinner
- leftovers
- soup
- broth
Exactly the kind of kitchen efficiency I love.
Tomorrow night is still TBD.
Current options:
- chuck roast
- sliced freezer meatloaf
- pizza night
And honestly, I like having enough flexibility in the fridge and freezer that I don’t HAVE to decide until tomorrow.