What’s Your Outdate?

I don’t know about you, but I try to fit in as many outdoor activities as I can while the weather is warm. But now that the sun is getting lower in the sky, it’s time to get ready for winter. In between the fun stuff, I’ve been trimming off my garden perennials, pulling weeds, and trimming shrubs.

But there’s one important item I try to do each spring and fall and that is to check the outdates of the food I have in my cupboards. This fall I am finding more short outdates than I have in the past. The big reason for this is that I was buying in bulk to minimize the number of times I had to go to the grocery store. I’ve learned a few lessons along the way.

My husband and I are older now and we don’t eat the same things we used to eat, but we still bought the things we were used to buying when we bought for a bigger family. Now I’m busy looking up those old recipes so I can use up that cream of mushroom soup and flavored jello. Have you ever tried a fruit cocktail cake or jello cookies? It’s pretty yummy. But we don’t need to buy in bulk as we did in the past. Maybe for us, buying a month at a time for staples is enough.

We don’t eat as much red meat as we used to so we don’t need all that ketchup. Did you know that there are recipes for using up that extra ketchup? Try some chili or vegetable soup. Besides using up that ketchup, you’ll also use up those canned beans and tomatoes. From now on, I’m only going to buy it when the jar is half empty.

It’s helpful to put a few containers of food in the freezer so you have it when you need a quick meal. Don’t overdo it! Keep rotating your stock. I like to move things up from my larger basement freezer to my refrigerator freezer to be sure that I don’t waste any frozen food. Then I plan my meals around the upstairs food stock.

My biggest lesson is that fresh is best. I live in farm country, so have the benefit of multiple Farmer’s Markets and roadside farm stands that offer fresh picked fruits and vegetables. I like to process fresh food for winter, but if you do this, be sure to use it. I try to date everything so that I am able to rotate my stock.

If you decide to go through your cupboards, I hope you have some fun picking out some old recipes to make. Do you like my rainbow jello? Enjoy!