My big pot, the one I use for pretty much everything, had been missing for over a month.
OK, so “missing” doesn’t really describe the situation with accuracy.
I knew exactly where it was. I knew exactly what was in it. And I had a pretty good idea of how long it had been in there.
It was stuck in the back of the fridge, full of very old Tortilla Soup.
See, I love tortilla soup. I always make a double batch and freeze it for another meal. But this time, I somehow left it out all night, forgetting to get it into the freezer.
Or even the fridge.
I justified that the house was rather cold, and it is a very acidic soup, and maybe it would be okay.
I normally would have pitched it, but I LOVE this stuff.
So, obviously, I had to eat a bowl the next day for lunch, just to see if it was poisonous. If I went ahead and froze the soup, I’d never remember its potential fatal qualities . . . . and might accidentally feed it to the entire family.
I had to be the tester.
But . . . having lived in Bangkok for two years, I know a thing or two about food poisoning. Six hours is the rule. If it’s the food that’s banishing you to the bathroom, it’s going to happen six hours after you eat it.
So, obviously, I couldn’t freeze it until six hours after my lunch.
Six hours is a very long time for this brain to remember that there’s something in the back of the fridge.
Six days later, I may have remembered it.
But of course, did nothing about it. Over the course of the next SIX WEEKS (at least), I thought about it many times, when I needed the pot, but was afraid to look inside to see if anything was growing in it.
I knew that eventually I would have to deal with it, so I was overly happy when hubby took on the job and did it for me.
Go Hubby!
I’ll be linking this up to I’m Lovin’ It over at Tidy Mom.
Because I love that pot.
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OMG I am not sure how many times I have done that and I bribe my step son that if he wants ungrounding or extra allowance, he will empty the nasty left overs out of the fridge for me….I have a phobia of left overs! LOL
Hilarious. And sadly, I have been there as well….
My favorite is when I find some sort of soupy, unidentifiable greenish goo in a plastic produce bag in the bottom of the veggie drawer…
We've all been there! I just cleaned out our fridge yesterday while putting away new groceries and threw out an entire grocery bag+ of produce that had gone bad…really, really bad. I hate wasting food like that! Might as well just be throwing money in the trashcan!
I've done similar things.
OMG, the number of times I’ve had to dispose of Dead Food!
I consider it a great step forward that these days, I mostly dispose of Terminal Food *before* it actually dies.
Sometimes, I even dispose of Poorly-Looking Food.
Next step #1 is to make smaller batches, so that it’s easier to finish off leftovers.
Next step #2 is to buy less of certain staples, because they just don’t get eaten up in time.
Next step #3 is to buy smaller containers of food, because they just don’t get eaten up in time. And because they make my cupboards and fridge more crowded, hiding the other things we should be eating up.
My "Soup Pot" right now is the gooey sticky yellow milk that spilled and has been at the bottom of my fridge, under the bottom drawer for…um… quite a while.
I don't think I can convince my children to clean it and I've just been hoping my husband doesn't notice it! 🙂
This is why my husband cleans out the fridge every six weeks or so.
My husband has had to rescue me many a times when it comes to cleaning out pots. haha
I feel your pain. I have a fry daddy full of oil that's been sitting covered on my counter for a couple of years. I am too scared to open the thing to assess the situation.
I've been working my way through your old posts for a couple of months (taking my time, so that they motivate me instead of just entertain me). I have Deja vu quite often, as I am also a slob, but this post was 100% me. Thanks!
We have a second refridgerator in our garage, which I LOVE having, especially for parties and at the holidays, except that I do the very same thing. And you can imagine how bad it can get at times. 😉
I did almost the exactly thing with the pasta salad I made, at Christmas. I threw it out yesterday. I needed the pot and the room in the refrigerator. Now my refrigerator feels almost empty and I’m wondering why I didn’t just do it sooner…way sooner. Ugh.
I found your blog a few months ago and have been reading from the beginning, if you’re still paying attention to who reads your post you’ve probably seen me flying through them. Thank you for your honesty, it helps to know I’m not alone. It was so fitting to read this post yesterday, I had to come back today to comment. -especially after reading in the next couple posts you mentioned you like having comments on old posts. Well, here goes. I’m about a year into my own deslobification process, 10 months into homeschooling all my kids, and 6 months into freezer cooking. On Monday, following an oral surgery I did my egg prep. Boiled a dozen, and made mini taco egg muffins with leftover taco meat, and ham and cheese egg muffins. I usually work evenings so my hubby does bedtime. Monday I let him do bedtime while I did my freezer cooking. Once the taco muffins were cooled I got them in the freezer, once the ham and cheese muffins came out of the oven I set them on the dining room table and went upstairs to kiss the kids goodnight. After my day I was drained and went to rest awhile. Fast forward to Tuesday morning when I was woke by my usually ornery, precocious 6 year old daughter who had made me breakfast. An egg, ham, and cheese muffin. -which is why I freezer cook. They can pop an egg muffin in the microwave and have breakfast done all by themselves. I was so happy that she’d woke up ready and willing to help, had even started my morning list of non-negotiables. She had made overnight oats for her and her brothers so that’s what they had. We had school done by 11 and I worked out in the yard a bit. 3 o’clock came, I was done. I was so sick I couldn’t continue. Having to work that night I laid down to rest and read your blog. 6 hours. Magic number. I read that and asked my daughter where she got my egg muffin from. She said, well, they were already on the table, I just heated it up. Face palm. I can’t blame her, it was an epic fail of my own. The rest of the eggs went into the trash, and I’ve decided to not wait to do our freezer cooking until the last minute of my day off. Anyway, thank you again for your honesty, solidarity, and humor. I can’t wait to catch up and see how you’re doing now, but I’m still a few years out. -hey, I read about 18 months worth in just a few, I’ll get there.
Ha!!! So sweet of her, though!!! So glad you found me!
I love you. I know it’s not just me.
Honestly, it’s amazing we haven’t bumped ourselves off with risky food business…lol Six hours is a stretch for most foods, I have Food Safe Level 2 and am using what I know to control my own fridge and don’t have too many “big pot” moments any more. And don’t Google it, it’s pretty revolting what’s going on in your good intentions with that (fill in the blank) in your fridge. 🙂
Oh, how many times I had been missing my favourite lunch box for the same reason, or my two most favourite lunch boxes, or three… 😀
It does not happen so often anymore, since I decluttered them, so I then have to wash them up, but I admit I carried my lunch in a soaked paper bag for several times, cause I was afraid what is hiding in my lunch boxes.