Current Fridge Protein & Leftover Inventory (Start of Day)
Cooked grilled chicken thighs
Cooked burger patties
Last of the steak from Sunday dinner
Chicken legs from Sunday dinner
Homemade beef summer sausage (small amount left)
Cooked rice
Cooked pasta
Bone broth
Fresh vegetables and salad ingredients
Morning
This morning started with… yes, more bacon.
I decided it was the perfect morning for a double batch because we didn’t have to jump straight into school or rush out the door early.
So now I officially have enough bacon prepped:
- through the weekend
- plus breakfast for Sunday morning before we leave town
Breakfast this morning was the usual rotation:
- bacon
- bagels
- toast
- smoothies
Very simple, very easy, very effective. I’ve been trying to slowly pack this week for our trip. This morning during breakfast I took out my bag of sunglasses…just random pairs I’ve collected over the years. Daphne had a GREAT time sorting through all of them
Morning Playground Trip + Car Snack System
Today we headed out to meet up with our homeschool co-op friends at a playground.
The regular co-op year is officially over, but now on Thursdays — when we’d normally be meeting anyway — everyone just starts gathering at playgrounds instead, which has been really fun.
Since it was a longer drive, I packed “car snacks.”
And one of my favorite systems for this:
Dollar Tree character cups.
Some of these cups are probably five to seven years old at this point…back when they were actually just $1.
Each kid picks a cup and fills it with:
- pantry snacks
- cheese sticks
- occasionally vegetables or fruit
Then the cup goes in the car cupholder, and once the snack is finished, all the trash goes BACK into the cup.
Then the cup comes back inside.
It keeps:
- wrappers contained
- trash out of my van
- random snack bags from multiplying under seats
A surprisingly effective little system.
Lunch — Finishing the Burgers
We got home for a late lunch and officially finished off the last of the burgers from earlier in the week.
The kids had burgers. My 10 year old did her standard ‘burger bowl salad’
I had another large salad.
At this point, I’m realizing salads are becoming my default lunch all summer long because they’re:
- flexible
- crunchy
- filling
- a great way to use leftover proteins
And they don’t require much extra kitchen work.
Afternoon — Bounce House Round Three
The bounce house came back out AGAIN today.
The weather has just been too perfect not to use it:
- dry ground
- warm but comfortable
- low humidity
The kids bounced while eating ice cream this afternoon, which honestly felt like peak late-spring energy.
I also repaired a small hole in the bounce house today using heavy-duty Gorilla Waterproof Patch & Seal Tape that’s specifically meant for inflatables and outdoor repairs.
Worked really well.
Dinner — Use Up the Last of the Meat Night
Tonight’s dinner was basically a “clear out all the remaining proteins” salad bar situation.
I pulled together:
- the last steak from Sunday dinner
- chicken legs from Sunday
- the final bits of homemade beef summer sausage
- hard boiled eggs
For the steak:
I diced it small and seared it in butter in a skillet.
For the chicken:
I reheated it gently in homemade broth from earlier this week.
Then everyone built their own plates or salads using:
- all the random vegetables left in the fridge
- different proteins
- toppings
- eggs
Some of the kids preferred fully deconstructed plates with everything separate, which works perfectly fine for us.
It ended up being one of those dinners that feels very “clean out the fridge” but still tastes really good because everything gets repurposed thoughtfully.
Post-Dinner / Looking Ahead
What’s in the fridge/freezer now:
Cooked grilled chicken thighs
Cooked pasta
Cooked rice
Bone broth
Cooked bacon
Fresh vegetables and salad ingredients
At this point, we’ve worked through almost all of the earlier-week proteins, which is exactly what I wanted before leaving town soon.
Tomorrow I’ll pull out a bag of cooked ground beef from the freezer because I want to:
- prep Friday night dinner
- start getting road trip food ready
- make sure we have easy meals heading into the weekend