Cleaning out the pantry

As part of Operation: Pantry & Freezer, I decided to give the pantry a top-to-bottom clean out.  The results were pathetic.  I think I threw away an amount of food, much of it unopened, that would reach close to four figures in retail prices.  There were sauces, crackers, canned goods, jarred stuff...you name it, and we had some of it that went bad.  The best find was a four pack of Red Bull buried behind some other stuff.  I have switched to the sugar free version almost exclusively, and this is the full-test stuff, but sleep has been so erratic lately thanks to the kids that I happily popped the four little cans in the fridge, knowing that they will probably be gone in a matter of days.

The early leader for "Saddest/most ridiculous item still around" was a six pack of some Tropicana fruity drink thing.  Firstly, there was only one bottle gone out of six.  Secondly, and more importantly, the "best by" date: September of 2007.  This is lame in and of itself, but the atrocity is compounded by the fact that we moved in June of 2008.  This means that, yes, we paid somebody to move those five bottles of juice for us so they could take up space in our new house and then I could throw them out two years later.

However, even the poor Tropicana was trumped at the end of the process when I stumbled upon a little bottle of truffle oil of some sort.  The expiration date?  May, 2003!  We have a winner!!

Sunday night dinner: Grilled cheese, oranges, and Goldfish crackers (requested) for the boy.  For us, I found a nice looking frozen Lobel's strip steak so I used that in an Asian stir fry.  Seasoned everything with salt, pepper, garlic powder, Szechuan seasoning, and soy sauce, tossed it together with a pack of frozen veggies, and served it over sushi rice, because that's what we had.  Very easy and really tasty.   Then, little pastries from the Greek Food Festival for dessert while we watched Lost.  Good stuff.