I love a challenge

Recently I've been picking up new grocery items we don't normally use. From the 17th Street Market, I picked got a bag of bean thread noodles and a bag of very thin rice noodles. And yesterday we went to Costco and I bought a huge jar of marinated artichoke hearts. I'm pretty sure in the lazy susan cabinet there's even a can of beets from a recent grocery trip.

We buy most of our meat and seafood in bulk, too, and keep it in the freezer. Chicken breasts and salmon from Costco, a whole beef tenderloin trimmed and cut into 1 lb servings, and shrimp purchased in 2 lb bags when it goes on supersale at the grocery (ask for the 2 lb bags from the butcher - they've got them in the back).

So we're pretty stocked up on food around here. David suggested that this week we skip the grocery and try to make a week's worth of meals from the items we already have in the house.

Today for lunch we had spinach salads with diced Costco rotisserie chicken breast, roasted red peppers, tomatoes from the garden, and artichoke hearts.

Tonight's menu:

Tilapia filets, cooked in a little olive oil and and white wine, seasoned with salt, pepper, tarragon, and lemon juice (I wanted to do cornmeal-crusted, but David is cooking tonight)

Steamed veggies (carrots, broccoli, and bell peppers left over from our pool party)

Quinoa

A quick note about Costco: They have some seriously good deals. If you don't have a membership, you don't know what you're missing. Yesterday I picked up a 3.5 lb bag of Bob's Red Mill quinoa for $8.69, 3 lbs of tilapia fillets at less than $6/lb, and 3 lb bag of spinach for $4.