What To Cook For Labor Day

We’ve got some delicious Labor Day inspired recipes coming out later this week, but today I’m excited to share some of my favorite picnic-themed recipes to inspire you for the upcoming holiday weekend. We did an array of research and came up with our best entries from our readers and past articles. Whether you are planning to start the summer fun with a picnic, meal delivery kit, barbecue or just a simple picnic with friends and family, we have put together the perfect menu ideas for Memorial Day 2020.

Apr042020

Terrytown Food Truck Festival (2020 Review)

We haven’t had the best luck with Westbank food festivals, and we only know of one food truck. I don’t think we even bothered covering the Bridge City Gumbo Festival, which had a total of ONE VENDOR serving gumbo. We thought it would be an event where we could sample hundreds of different gumbos, but the focus wasn’t the gumbo, despite being hosted by the self-proclaimed Gumbo Festival of the World. As a festival, it wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t a gumbo festival, or even a food festival for that matter.

Mar232019

Leftover Magic: BBQ Brisket

If you’re anything like us, you usually make WAY too much food for important events, holidays and family get-togethers. If you went to our wedding, you’d know this. No one had any room in their stomachs left by the time first dessert was served. Second and third desserts weren’t even touched. I don’t think people even looked at them. For St. Patrick’s Day, we always make far too many corned beefs, and in some cases, we buy so many of them that we don’t even cook some. Either way, whether you have cooked ones sitting in the fridge or uncooked ones, we found a fun way to repurpose them… by making BBQ!

Apr232015

Simply the Best BBQ Sauce

One of the goals here at Hungry & Fit HQ is to provide our readers with low-budget alternatives. We also try to keep things as healthy as possible. I was alarmed recently when I decided that I wanted to have some BBQ sauce at home to add to our condiment arsenal and found some less than stellar options at multiple groceries. Every single option at a major grocery chain had high fructose corn syrup in it as one of the top ingredients. (The macros were NOT the friendliest, even to flexible dieters.) When I finally found some healthier choices at Whole Foods, the value just wasn’t there. I was looking at $5 small bottles, and I don’t know about you, but I like to use a lot of BBQ sauce. I decided at the time to bite the bullet and spend the extra money (because I love good flavor) but unfortunately, I was not impressed.

Sep042012

Who celebrated Labor Day? We Did!

So what’s it actually mean to celebrate Labor Day? It means to keep a tradition from 1882 alive, by recognizing the hard work and dedication of everyone in this fine country that works for nearly every other day of the year. Or that’s what it more-or-less meant when it was founded.

Now, it’s just another reason for people to “party” in whatever sense of that word they want to follow. Back home, I thought a lot more stores closed on Labor Day but I never count so it’s hard to tell. So much for not working on Labor Day… everyone in Target was working, and they have a lot of employees. Everyone in the grocery was working too. Maybe it’s that people, businesses, and the economy in general can’t really take a day off like it could have when our genera financial situations were doing better. We managed to take off because neither of us have actual jobs right now. But we did put our work in on Labor Day doing our general chores around the house. Cleaning the house, cleaning the litter boxes, changing a light bulb, you know, the little things. We did, also, decided to celebrate a little with some family.

Around 5:30 p.m., Alana made some guacamole with avocados that were 3 for $1. Good deal. She also made homemade chips, but flour tortillas do not make chips as well as corn tortillas. So remember that. On the way to Marga’s (her aunt) in North Boulder (Nobo), we stopped at the grocery store (Safeway) and bought some big-brand chips, a pineapple (for grilling), and some fish. When we got to the fishmonger’s counter, I looked for a fresh (non-frozen or thawed) and wild-caught (not farmed raised) piece of fish. The choices were salmon, sole, halibut, and swordfish. Swordfish was on sale, it’s one of the meatiest and fishiest fish, so that was an easy choice. Good for grilling. So is salmon, but I’ve had enough grilled salmon for a lifetime. We headed over to Marga’s house, and we were the first ones there.

Her new house, which as you can imagine has already seen tons of work, is looking great so far. There’s still a lot to be done, but the progress is really amazing for one person, with a handful of helpers that show up from time to time to contribute, i.e., Michael, us, Megan, Ben, Fred, who knows. When we got there it looked like there was already enough food prepared for eight people but we were just expecting everyone mentioned above, minus Michael, plus Fred’s brother who is visiting from Utah. Well, Fred and his brother had a fantasy football draft, so they couldn’t quite make it, leaving ALL that food for us! What a pity.

Our Lovely Feast

The feast, which was shared by the five (Megan, Ben (Alana’s cousins), Marga, Alana, and I) of us (a friend stopped over but was too full to eat), included: a beautifully presented salad with walnuts, avocado, mixed tomatoes, and blackberries… the chips and guacamole… corn on the cob, boiled in a pot… burgers with feta cheese stuffed into them… homemade potato salad…from Whole Foods (Marga’s would’ve been better)… grilled swordfish steaks… grilled pineapple… grilled peaches… and some pink wine, Rosé?

Marga’s Beautiful Salad

We were all stuffed, I had been eating since Alana started making the guacamole so I was pretty full. We brushed the cats (not the kittens and wow do they make ours seem like toys) and chatted about school starting, Ben’s soccer coaching, our job situation, etc. It was an awesome time and we were so glad that, despite moving to a new place, we had great family to spend our holiday with, even if we aren’t the biggest fans of Labor Day.

I hope you all enjoyed a nice holiday as well, and for all of our international viewers, I’d love to hear if you have your own version of Labor Day where you’re from. Please share!