At least once a week, I try to make something for dinner that helps me clear all the odd bits out of my produce drawers. During the colder months, I make huge pots of soup that serve as the basis of quick meals all week long. When the weather starts to warm up, however, I turn to salads to use a handful of mushrooms and the last skinny stalks of celery from the very center of the bunch.

No one really needs a recipe for this kind of use-it-up salad, but sometimes it's nice to see how other people approach their clean-out-the-fridge meal. I can easily fall into a rut, so a little bit of outside inspiration is just plain nice.

This is where Jeff Mauro's Garbage Salad and Champagne Vinaigrette comes in. It's not a recipe that's reinventing the wheel, but it does pull together a nice assortment of complementary flavors that are outside my regular, well-trod paths. The vegetable base is a motley collection of romaine, iceberg, carrots, celery, mushrooms and pepperoncini. The brain wave is that he also includes blue cheese, sliced deli turkey and oil-packed anchovies. That means there's enough protein in that salad for it to pass for a full-on meal (at least in my house).

It's good for Sunday afternoons or whenever your Weekender craving may strike.

— Remember to use this recipe as a template more than a commandment. Use different lettuces, toss in whatever other veggies you might have and swap out the meat if it doesn't float your boat.

— If blue cheese doesn't thrill your primary dining companions, try using creamy goat's milk chevre instead. It will behave in much the same way, but the flavor isn't as assertive.

— If you plan on making this salad for weekday lunches, make sure to leave off the dressing until the very last minute so that it doesn’t slump into a soggy mess.

Marisa McClellan is a food writer and canning teacher who lives in Center City Philadelphia. Find more of her food (all cooked up in her 80-square-foot kitchen) at her blog, Food in Jars. Her second cookbook, Preserving by the Pint: Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces, is now available.