According to the weatherman, this is supposed to be a particularly bad winter, so I decided to donate all of the canned goods I bought last fall and replace them with fresh. I don’t really like canned food, other than tomatoes, but if the power goes out, we can still heat it on the gas stove, without worrying about opening and closing the freezer.
Apparently, we had managed to consume most of what has been purchased last year – or maybe I didn’t get as much as I thought. Anyway, the entire adventure was akin to cleaning out under the kitchen sink. Other than a few cans of tuna fish, almost everything in the pantry and the back room was wildly outdated. I mean, none of the cans were bulging, and I don’t mind trying (but would not donate) something that is, say, six months past its “use by” date, but I found things that had expired in 2009! Do you know how long ago that was?
And what on earth had I intended to fix with this assortment of goodies? Odd stuff – garbanzo beans, cheddar cheese soup, beef bullion? (we’re vegetarians, for Pete’s sake!), several cans of coconut milk (The Squire was on an Indian food kick there for a while.) and Heaven knows what all else.
We opened all the cans and dumped the stuff into the blancher, which The Squire carried out to the compost heap. He reported this evening that almost all of the food had been eaten by the critters, so at least it didn’t go completely to waste.
thisendoftheswamp 