Clean Out The Fridge

I'll warn you this is a long post because it covers four meals over two days.

Perhaps it’s because our parents grew up during the Great Depression and drilled it into us, but Bev and I hate to throw away food – at least until it’s turned into something else or has something furry growing on it. As a result, we always have a little bowl of this or a part package of that, which we generally eat for lunch. Utilizing these items takes on a sense of urgency when we’re heading out of town for a few days and so it was for the two days prior to our annual WVa trip to my hometown of Fairmont.

Bev had mentioned earlier in the day that I’d better eat the smoked salmon before it goes bad and while I thought it was unopened, I went to investigate. I found it to indeed be open and in need of consumption. I thought about a Naan bread pizza thingy, but didn’t have the bread, plus I would have had to open a fresh pack of cream cheese and warm it up.

So I improvised and used a slice of English muffin bread (mentioned on Sep 21), several thin slices of the Norwegian smoked salmon, cottage cheese (close enough to cream cheese for me and a favorite), and a few capers sprinkled on top. I added a little pepper, but let the salmon and capers provide the salt.


I thought it was delicious and will eat it again when I’m not just trying to eat up the salmon, but next time I'll remember a little thin sliced red onion - I knew I should have looked back at the pizza thingy.

For supper, we still had some several days old kebabs left in the fridge, from the post on 9/20 - fortunately they'd been marinated in Italian dressing and were well preserved. They were mostly veggies but had a few pieces of meat. Bev put on the same seasonings as I used for the first batch but added some Tabasco Chipotle Sauce and they were delicious - Chipotle on them from now on. We also had some okra, given to us by Eric and Ann, and some green tomatoes that had been in the fridge for several weeks. So Bev fried them up per our normal process of cornmeal breading and fried in Crisco.


I love green tomatoes and okra fried together. For a trying-to-clean-the-fridge meal it was very tasty.

The main ingredient of day twos meals was the second of two pork tenderloins left from the recent BBQ day and I had it twice. First was a simple breakfast of a piece of bread topped with cheddar cheese and diced onions and toasted, topped with some reheated diced pork tenderloin, topped with a fried egg and some chives. It was real good and a sauce of choice could also have been added.





For supper, it was the rest of the pork tenderloin which we reheated in the mircowave & sliced. Then, I made a sauce of some leftover mustard based BBQ sauce, that Bev remembered had been in the fridge for months, mixed with some half and half and nuked. We sided it with the rest of the okra, some green tomatoes, like last night, with the addition of some potatoes and onions. I believe this is called Alabama scramble, and while I love it, I haven't had it in a couple of years - but I don't know why. To make it, you cook the potatoes for 5- 10 minutes, then add the onions for about 5 minutes, then add the okra and tomatoes and cook until it's all done and crispy. We also added some red sweet peppers cause they were in the fridge and we like em - some added diced jalapeno would have worked real well. Here it is just after adding the okra and tomatoes. We used Crisco, but some added bacon drippings would kick it up a notch.


All cooked up.


My plate. If you like the ingredients in the scramble, I'm sure you'll like the combo. We all liked the mustard sauce on the pork, but I have no idea how I made the original BBQ sauce - but I still have quite a bit.


In summary this was a damn fine meal and all of the scramble got eaten.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry