Leftovers are kind of a big deal in my household. I’m not a fan of waiting in long lines and paying downtown prices for lunch so I usually try to plan dinners that work well as leftovers. That way, I can take them with me to the office to have as my lunch the next day. Sometimes, no matter how good a planner you are, you end up with leftovers that just won’t do as a lunch. Perhaps you simply miscalculated and didn’t make enough extra food for a full lunch or maybe you ended up with only one component of the meal, like vegetable stir-fry but no rice. Or, perhaps you made something that is currently on the microwave blacklist at work (fish is banned at my office and, yes, we did have a staff meeting about it.) When this happens, you have a couple of choices. You can suck it up and throw the food away. You can wait until you have accumulated other oddball leftovers and eat it all together as one big leftovers feast (and hope that nobody makes fun of you for eating spaghetti with a side of curried vegetables.) Or, you can take your leftovers and repurpose them into a whole new meal. That last one is my favorite option because it forces you to be a bit creative.

Friday night, Robert and I went to our neighborhood Korean joint, Kimchi Bistro. Normally I get the Soon Doo Boo but, since it was such a nice day and spicy tofu soup didn’t seem appropriate, I decided to boldly try something new: grilled mackerel. I love mackerel, and this one was certainly delicious, but it was also enormous! I ate most of the rice and stir-fried cabbage that came with it, but I could only manage to eat half of the fish before I was completely stuffed full. I decided to take the rest home with me even though half of a crispy, charred mackerel didn’t seem like it would be very good as is for lunch the next day. It was time to get creative and do a little repurposing!

Well, if I had had the time to go to Uwajimaya for ingredients, I would have made the Grilled Mackerel Salad from my Thai cookbook. That’s one of those recipes that always sounds good to me but that I never actually consider making because, you know, when am I ever going to have grilled mackerel in the house? But, I barely had enough time to go to the grocery store on Saturday let alone to make an extravagant salad. So, for all you Top Chef fans out there, I considered this my own personal quickfire challenge: what can you make out of leftover mackerel in a short amount of time using a limited number of easily available ingredients?

Mackerel is similar to salmon in that it is strong-flavored and oily so I started thinking along the lines of what I would do if I had leftover smoked salmon. Then, it was obvious: use it as a spread for crackers! I removed the bones and flaked the mackerel into a small bowl. Then, I mixed it with mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon juice and, for crunch and a sweet note, finely minced granny smith apple. That’s it! The mackerel was already so flavorful that I didn’t need to add any seasonings. I served this on whole wheat crackers, and it was a perfect lunchtime treat. It may not have been the most creative way of using up my mackerel, but it was definitely easy and delicious. What is your favorite way of repurposing leftovers?