Food purchased - just in case?

use by dates for dry goods are just silly! And for a lot of fresh food too- we regularly eat food past sell by date- trust your nose is much better than a date, within reason, and cook well. Never ever been ill - butr did get campylobacter from porrly cooked chicken in a restaurant in the UK a few years back.

Nearest shop is about 14 miles away - apart from a little village shop with limited stock. I partly buy there - to keep it alive as a going concern - and also from Tesco online. In neither do I have too much problem getting small amounts with long eat-by dates. And if something starts to teeter in that direction I stick it in the freezer. I cannot cope with food waste - the children make a real joke of it.

However, some goods (usually dry goods), of which you only use a tiny amount, are a problem: spices, for example. I also have a problem with tea, as we only get "builders' tea" when we have builders in! My DDs try and see if they can find the item in the larder which has the longest date on it, as they know I will not throw anything away - youngest is winning by finding some food colouring from 15 years ago! I'm sure it is harmless!

Good point loopy!

I've never done a meal plan in my life, perhaps that's something I need to consider?

I hate food shopping, I'm a reluctant and spontaneous cook, to be honest if I could just take a pill instead of eating I'd be very happy
DH rarely cooks, eats absolutely anything and is therefore easy to please.

I do buy too much and I do end up chucking stuff out but generally everything does get used up.

I thought about getting a bigger freezer until I realised all I'd do is fill it faster!

exactly ;)

Oh yes, I always have the chilled bottle of champagne ready too. It never gets wasted, though!

Jane10 I like to keep champagne, ready chilled, too

Nothing gets wasted or thrown away, I use up everything. I think when you grow a lot of your own food you realise how much hard work is involved. Even elderly-looking mixed salads get turned into stir-fries. Shrivelled root veg are rejuvenated by soaking in cold water overnight. I buy long-life orange juice purely for DS. When he goes back to uni, he either takes the carton with him or I freeze it. Leftovers are frozen or souped, veg I don't need straightaway is dehydrated and used in casseroles. I am a right old Scrooge when it comes to food. I do my shopping online so that I don't get tempted, I run my eye back down the list to make sure I can't put anything off for another week.

As I make most of our bread, it does tend to go hard quite quickly, although I do usually make rolls and only take out as many as I will need. the birds get that in the winter, soaked in water, or it is made into breadcrumbs.

My MiL can't understand me, she was born in 1944 and had rationing hanging over her head. She loves wasting food simply because to her it feel like luxury to be able to buy whatever she wants, and to be able to throw away half a bag of salad leaves. However what gets to me is her Christmas cake. She makes one every year, a huge one, then only allows us and them very small slices. By Easter it is still sitting there, at least three quarters of it, in her larder, unloved and forlorn. We return and she disposes of it in front of us! I have no idea why! One year I asked if we could take a chunk home, she refused 'in case we have visitors'.

Living in the countryside it's wise to have a few things 'just in case'.
But I try to be sensible and not stock up for a seige!
I don't like food waste, so try to shop carefully, checking sell-by dates etc. At the moment I'm eating 'out of the fridge', - all those odds and ends tucked away at the back. I do this twice a year.
But, there's nothing wrong with having some extra tins of soup etc,
just in case.

Emergency champagne!

We like to keep an emergency bottle of champagne in the fridge in case of sudden causes for celebration. I buy it up when its on special offer, I'm not that flash! Its come in handy for unexpected impending GC news or good job news. Better to be prepared!

I keep a freezer chocker block, just in case, and my fridge is full of the things I might fancy. We often end up eating a delicious medley on the use by dates. My biggest fault is coleslaw in case I want it with a ham sandwich even though I know it gives me stomach cramps, it usually gets binned with one spoonful out.

If I ever ty to throw anything away when daughter 3 is around, she really tells me off, and if I still don`t want said item because it`s out of date, she takes it, says dates don`t bother her.

I waste very little food, bits of vegetables that are really past eating, but I do stock up with food when visitors come and at Christmas. I do keep as much stuff as possible in the freezer so it can be eaten later.

Coleslaw and packed beetroot, always chucking them away, drive myself crazy when I bin them.

Too many greedy guts in our house to get too much wasted

<hollow laughter>

modern freezers are not frost free if they happen to be a badly designed hotpoint that ices up such that the cold air can not get into the fridge and it acts as an insulated cupboard sitting at around two degrees cooler than the kitchen.

the engineer took a slab of ice nearly two inches thick and the size of the back of the freezer compartment out of it last time he came to check.

Thanks Gagagran, I have all the same stuff as you minus the beer, chocolate and fruit and potatoes, which I never put in the fridge but in the small pantry. Might break a tooth on fridge choccy.

Oh I'm quite used to eating the same thing for several days... as for freezing - I hardly ever do that now. The reason is that once stuff is out of sight I forget about it, and it eventually gets thrown out. I did once take in some frozen stuff for a neighbour whose freezer went on the blink - I had a biggish chest freezer in those days. About three years later I came across a rather sad looking frozen duck. Once defrosted it looked even worse, but it tasted fine, and did me no harm... Now I'm an old gent, though, I tend to be more cautious about such things.

Must say I would never have a chest freezer again- even with having different baskets for fruit, veg, meat, etc- I still ended up with a great lot of food at the bottom poorly accessible - a real nuisance. Much prefer separate draws for different things. We have a tall one we brought over from the UK, one built in in our old kitchen and one in the second (ex parish room) at the back- which is not always in use.

We have a built in fridge which is not big enough, and another in Ye Olde Parish room- but as last Christmas the room was rented over festivities and and kids and grand-kids all turned up - I quickly bought another fridge for the utility, second-hand from a friend- I keep that one not as cold for beers and veg. Works well. One day we will have a new kitchen and we will rationalise it all- in the meantime- it does the job.

I don't think frost free ones are suitable for outside.

I have two freezers. A large chest freezer in the garage and a small one which is used seasonally. At the moment it is full with surplus garden produce. Once that is consumed - usually just after Christmas, it will be turned off until next August. I have one small table top fridge, which is often half empty.

Planning and shopping a week ahead doesn't stop us chopping and changing the menu as we go along - or go out and eat. I just check what is left before planning the next weeks menu. With so much of what we eat coming from the freezer - meat and vegetables - there is a built in flexibility. Something like fish pie can be cooked and then frozen.

Gagagran- hat off to you. This is what I believe our fridges should be like, we also have 3 for all sorts of reasons... and sometimes it is like that for about 2 days twice a year! Bravo!

Fridge in the garage has beer and white wine and soft drinks. Built in fridge in kitchen has salad stuff in salad drawer, milk, eggs, DH's stash of chocolate, DH's stash of beer he's brought in from fridge 1 for ease of access. Tall fridge has all my opened jams, pickles and sauces in the door, yoghurts and cream on top shelf, box with ham, bacon, cheese etc plus butters (hard for baking and spreadable for bread) on next shelf, meat, sausage, main meal ingredients on next one, perishable fruit on next one, potatoes in a container on top of salad drawer with fresh veg in that. Seems to work just fine!

Neither of my freezers is frost free roses so yes, there are icy caves - especially the big one in the garage But soon we will be a 1-freezer household and I am feeling very positive about that.

Modern freezers are frost free, so have no icy caves, Gagagran, or is yours very old?What on earth do you keep in three fridges?Just curious.

kitty you have reminded me - we have 3 fridges too! The one I forgot about is in the scary garage and has drinks - beer etc. We then have the built-in one we inherited in the posh kitchen plus the tall larder fridge we brought with us (which is my favourite).

I am OK with the fridges as they seem easier to monitor somehow. It's the freezers which seem to secrete things in their icy caves which I have turned against. I am determined to live more sensibly stores-wise henceforth!