Food Waste Friday

I can't find our camera so until I do "Food Waste Friday" will be without photos. This week we threw out:

1. 3 containers of Pumpkin Spice Spread that were left over from a wedding I helped to cater at Thanksgiving.
2. 2 bricks of cream cheese - again, leftover from the wedding.
3. 1/2 quart of heavy cream - wedding.
4. 1/2 quart of half-and-half. - wedding.
5. Chicken Milano without the pasta.
6. 1/4 gallon of orange juice that had been shoved to the back of the fridge.
7. Leftover salad with chicken - from eating out last week.
8. Some shredded cheese.
9. Part of a 2-liter of Diet Coke (a friend came over and that's all he drinks but we don't drink it)
10. A bottle of organic milk that was bad when I opened it.
11. A container of organic yogurt that was bad when I opened it. (The milk and the yogurt came from 2 different places)
12. Some lunch meat.
13. A whole sliced ham given to me by my company for Christmas.

This week we didn't throw away any produce, which is unusual for us. This seems like a lot of food, and it is, but  the wedding stuff just was not going to be used and I couldn't find anyone in the last 3 months to give it to; no one seemed to want pumpkin cream cheese or cream cheese.

I'm really irked about the bad milk and yogurt though. I put them back in the fridge to take them back to the stores and get a refund or get them replaced, but DH didn't know that and threw them out. The dates were still good on both of them and had been purchased recently so I don't know why they were bad.

I wish DH hadn't thrown out the Diet Coke. It was only a week old and our friend would have drank it when he came over again next week.

The ham. Well, there's really no excuse for that. We were going to cook it but I didn't realize that DH had gotten it out of the deep freeze and put it in the produce drawer to thaw (it sure would be nice to have a larger fridge with see-through shelves). After it had been there for over a week I found it and by that point it was too late, not to mention it had leaked quite a bit. Too bad. That was free food. On the other hand, I really don't like pork; it's probably the Jew in my trying desperately to come out.

DH was just trying to get the fridge and freezer cleaned out to get ready for my Once A Month Mom Cook Off. I know I said on Monday that I was going to be participating but my partner is not going to be able to do it. Her son is in soccer and they just got their schedules on Wednesday. There is a game, in the middle of the day (well, 10a-12p) and her husband is the coach.

I may go it alone but I still haven't gone to the store. Also, I would be trapped in the house alone with all three kids for most of the weekend as DH has a lot of work to do at the office this weekend (he normally doesn't go in on the weekends but the company has a product release today so there's a lot to be done).

I'll make my decision to either go to the store tonight and attempt it by myself or to skip this month and do it next month.