Pantry Purge

091205PantryI got a gift card for my hiring anniversary and since I needed to go shopping anyways, I decided that I would use it.  I don’t usually by $100 worth of groceries at one time so I called up my parents and asked if they needed anything.  My dad said they didn’t so I tried to help him by asking him if they had this or if they had that.  He always came up with an, “I don’t know.”

The pantry is filled up but I have no idea what is in there or what isn’t so when I got home, I pulled everything out.  I suppose I have to mention that my family buys in bulk and a good deal of kitchen, basement, and mudroom space goes to food storage.  You can see some of “fridge porn” here.

You can probably guess what some of our staple meals when you count, 27 dry sauce packets, 14 cans of mushrooms, 8 cans of tomato paste, and 11 cans of tomato sauce; also 3 cans of bamboo shoots, 5 cans of bean sprouts, and 4 cans of water chestnuts.

091205Cans But there were a few surprises like 8 cans of tomato soup—I can’t even recall the last time anyone ate that.  A package of mung beans—eww.  3 jars of peanut butter but only one of jelly?  3 mystery cans.  1 can of pumpkin courtesy of the U.S. government (when did we receive food aid???).  I also counted 7 boxes of oatmeal and 7 boxes of pop tarts, about half of which were opened. 6 boxes of cake mix.  Twenty something boxes of jello and pudding.  A 10lbs box of sugar packets (WTF?). The oldest thing I dated was the refried beans from 2002.  The most disgusting thing I found was a moldy and bug infested brick of mung beans but the opened and exposed block of cooking chocolate that is more than a year old, might bump it from first place since Dad says he still intends to use it.

I threw out what I was allowed and cycled up the older stuff so that it would get used first.  Hopefully it will help them out the next time they need to find out what they need to buy.  Although, I suspect that if canned mushrooms go on sale for 25¢ again they’ll still buy a case of ‘em.

Comments

Kristel said…
I think the pumpkin might be from Grandma who got it from... oh what was her name... Stella?
David said…
Eeew, hack, spit. That would make that the oldest thing in the pantry since Stella died in 90's.

Mmm, but do you remember powdered egg packets? That made for some delicious omelettes. I don't think you buy it.

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