At my parent's house it always seems to be chicken. My mom will buy it or
take it out of the freezer and then for one reason or another they keep
going out to eat instead of cooking the chicken. And then it is expired and
then she has to throw it away. That doesn't happen to me with meat. If I
have meat in such a situation, I will just cook it and stick it in the
freezer. If it is hamburger I may give it taco seasoning. The meat then
may or may not get eaten from my freezer, so yeah, it may still get wasted.
But we do try to eat it at some point.

This week? It's pasta salad. I went through my cupboard where I keep
pasta, rice, instant mashed potatoes and some packets of cheese sauce powder
which I have never used. It is a small cupboard. I could have sworn that I
went through it at the start of school but in it was a box of Life Cereal
that I had bought for my husband. Expired in 2010. He no longer eats
cereal of any kind so I thought I had gotten rid of it all. It was
essentially an empty box with only crumbs left in it. I did have to throw
out a small amount of stuff which I could swear that I purchased since the
start of school. Perhaps it was close to being expired or expired when I
bought it. It did come from Big Lots. That was only $2.00 worth of food so
no great loss.

But I do have some things that are going to expire in a few months. And
there was a box of quinoa pasta with no expiration date on it but I know it
is at least a year old because my health food store no longer sells it that
way. They buy it in bulk and package it up. I knew I needed to use it so
planned to make pasta salad for tonight and tomorrow night.

But then Angela got sick. Started last week on Thu. I assumed it was only
a one day thing. She seemed better on Fri. and Sat. although she said she
did have a little of the big D on those days but apparently not enough to
bother to tell me.

But Sunday? We had purchased a gluten free taco pizza from Garlic Jim's.
We sat there while they made it. Angela heard them talking about it and was
pleased that they told us they couldn't put the normal chips on there
because they weren't gluten free. She was happy that they were being so
careful with her food. But then about 2 hours after she ate it she got the
big D again and I do mean BIG! This lead me to believe that maybe it wasn't
really gluten free. Or it somehow got cross contaminated. Because that is
one of her symptoms when she eats wheat. She was convinced that it was fine
because she watched them make it and the crust didn't look like a wheat
crust. We have gotten pizza from them for my husband so we know what it
looks like.

Monday and Tues. she was no better. She missed school. Took her to the
Walk In Clinic after I had my mammogram and that Dr. felt it was just
gastroenteritis because a lot of that has been going around in the school.

She got better but then late last night it struck again! She had to go to
school today. School has been all messed up what with them missing a week
of school due to snow. She missed a math test yesterday but can't retake it
till Fri. due to her math teacher being out for an emergency type operation
on a broken arm due to playing soccer. Oh joy! And she had very important
paperwork to turn in to her gym teacher about a schedule change and also the
makeup sheets of her physical activities for the days she missed due to
whooping cough. The end of the semester has been changed due to the snow so
all of this had to have been done by Thu. Not sure about the math test but
I guess that will all be sorted out.

I did tell her if she had the big D at school to call me and I would come
get her. She only needed to make it through till lunch. Well...
Apparently she did have at school and didn't call me. Grrr... And now she
is very sick again. I may have to take her to the pediatrician.

Anyway... I made her the pasta salad last night but don't dare give it to
her now because of all the veggies in it. And I am not so sure how easily
quinoa digests. I gave her turkey breast and plain rice and I also bought
more applesauce, some lactose free yogurt and bananas. The Dr. was
concerned about her BG but did say this was the best sort of diet for her to
eat. So now I have this big container of pasta salad that probably won't
get eaten. I didn't feel like eating it tonight. I need to do my taxes so
just bought myself a sandwich while I was at the store. I am not too
thrilled about sandwiches but I can eat it while I work. And I really just
didn't feel like eating pasta salad.

There is a chance if she gets better she can eat some of it tomorrow and I
will eat it. But the rest is likely to go to waste. I am not sure how long
it will keep. Assuming she is going to dance on Friday, we will go out to
eat after and then grocery shopping. And Sat. we spend with my parents who
go out to eat. I suppose if it makes it till Sun. we could eat the rest of
it then. But I don't know if it will. At least I only made 4 servings. I
didn't put everything that I normally put in it because that would just make
too much. But it just seems like such a waste of my time to make it all and
then not have it get eaten. Plus the cost of all the veggies that went into
it. When I make this I use mostly veggies and just a little pasta.

So does this happen to you? I'm sure it would happen to everyone at some
time or other but... It seems to happen to us more times than I would like.
Perhaps because I am so careful to plan out our meals. I want to make sure
we have enough food for the week but not too much food. And because it is
fresh food it just doesn't keep.