Steelhead salmon – 10 bucks, 3+ meals, and a happy cat

I adore the orange and yellow clearance stickers, but I especially love them when they’re plastered across gorgeous pieces of meat.  In this case, it was a large package of steelhead fillets for only $9.26. Seeing that it was originally a $40 selection makes it even sweeter.

I didn’t know exactly what kind of fish steelhead was, but because I thought it was salmon when I first saw the color, we figured it was something similar.

It wasn’t until we were almost to the checkout that I noticed the sticker actually called it catfish.  Um, there’s no way, lol. Weird. Fortunately, Wikipedia confirmed that steelhead is just another name for rainbow trout.

For meal #1, we had large steaks covered in Panko and baked until delicious. We could’ve had smaller steaks atop salads to stretch it farther, but for that kind of price, no need in skimping.

It actually produced two pans’ worth like that, so there was enough for us to have seconds and to have some for lunch the day.

The end pieces that weren’t thick enough for thick steaks, I cut into nuggets, dipped in egg, and battered with Panko.

The Panko crumbs hadn’t stuck quite as well to the steaks as I had hoped, so dipping in egg made sure it wasn’t going to budge. I also mixed in a bit of regular bread crumbs for more even coverage (read: even crispier goodness).

Mmmm, golden brown and crispy. Note, in the last picture you can see there’s two pans of these, too. Between all the, um, “taste testing” and snacking, it’s surprising there was any left, but I still had plenty to stick a whole pile into each of three bento boxes, too.

So what about the cat? If you scroll back up, you can see that there were some large fatty pieces on the fish.

I took those areas, plus a few other scraps, and cut them into itty bitty pieces.

It’s certainly not the most appetizing-looking….

But after an overnight visit with the dehydrator, I had dozens of little homemade cat treats.

Not bad for 9 bucks and some change, eh?