So a few weeks ago while cleaning out the garage I came across the fridge that we don't use anymore. I opened the freezer (the fridge has been unplugged for at least 2 full years) and found 5 blocks of colby jack. I check the expiration date .... June 2005 ... so I am guessing I bought them sometime around DEC 2004. They looked ok so I opened one and smelled it ....smelled good .... licked it .... tasted good. I took the remaining four blocks and snuck them into the fridge in the house. About a week later Amy made lasagna and used the cheese. After everyone had eaten I told her about the old cheese. Everyone was happy so over the past few weeks we have eaten the rest of the aged cheese.
Who would have thought that cheese that states "Keep Refrigerated" could be kept in an old musty freezer in all kinds of weather for over 3 years could still be eaten. So I think that I will start hoarding cheese in all the nooks and crannies in the house so that we can enjoy them at later dates.
7 comments:
We, too, show complete disregard for expiration dates.
A quick search of our fridge yielded the following:
--3 pints of cream, and a tub of sour cream--purchased in November/December, expired in February.
--The old soy yoghurt that expired in December was missing--I checked with Betsy--she used it today in the dinner we ate.
--Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce purchased three years ago when Felix was here, expired September 2007. We used some of it a couple weeks ago.
--Sriracha HOT chili saucew expired March, 2007
--Lactaid brand lowfat cottage cheese, Expired April 18, 2007 (admittedly a little iffy)
--Precious brand part skim ricotta cheese, use by July 2007--I guess we never made those calzones. . .
A while back we were watching the evening news, and they had a segment on how you should use deli meat with 2-3 days of purchase. We let that stuff sit in our fridge for weeks before consumption.
I also read an article a couple months ago about dry aging beef. The article said that even when beef starts to get a little grey in the fridge, that just means you need to cook it soon, and, on the plus side, it should be nice and tender.
I think the best story, though, is the story Betsy tells about how her dad went to the dumps to get rid of a load of trash, and came back with a case of bubble gum.
A case? Try enough gum to fill a wheel barrow. What she probably didn't tell you is that the guy who threw it out made the dozer operator bury it ... then when the vendor left the dozer uncovered it so that all that were there could enjoy the loot. Oddly enough the dozer guy was rather proficcient and burying and then retrieving things that people thought they were throwing away.
After he brought the gum home he hid it in various places around the house and in the shop. My brothers and I would sneak around till we found it and then we would binge. I don't know how old that gum was but we chewed every last piece.
I'm sure I've talked about this, but growing up, we always left our pizza out on the counters. We never refrigerated it. And we would eat it for days like that. No biggie. I never realized it was gross, and still don't have a problem with it. And eggs, we keep them for a while. I never even knew they had expiration dates.
I do have to put that the freezer was in the garage and that it is a lot cooler (freezing in winter) in there. Although I probably wouldn't have eaten it if I would have known. I should have realized something was sneaky because he went to the fridge and pulled out some store bought cheese and ate it and then cut a slice of the cheese and ate it. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, I'm just tasting cheese. I've never noticed the taste before. HA HA.
Gross. That's all I can say.
I LOVE to clean out the fridge in the teacher's lounge at school. There is NOBODY grosser than a bunch of teachers. Stuff in that fridge can walk out on it's own feet. Some of the pigs think their mother works at school or something. They will use utensils and plates and get them all dirty and just leave them in the sink for someone else to clean. I clean real good. I chuck ANY dirty dishes or silverware into the trash. Sooner or later we will run out then the sink will stay clean.....
You probably shouldn't have eaten the cheese, aged that long it was probably worth something......
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