Wow! All that apple cider for only 99 cents! What a deal right? They rarely have apple cider even available at my grocery store so I got super excited and even considered somehow getting two containers of it home. Good thing I did not put my poor back in jeopardy because I came home to find out that the apple cider’s expiry date was that day. It was a real V8 moment for me. Someone smack my forehead!
This is my chronic foodie mistake. I tend to forget to check expiry dates all the time. What is worse and even more embarrassing is, sometimes I have no idea what today’s date is. Heck, sometimes I have no idea what day of the week it is, thanks to living in a fibro fog. So even when I do check expiry dates I can not figure out how fresh the food is until I get home.
Last night I was speaking with friends and found out that they had made apple cider with a ton of cloves and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. I knew one friend who misread a chili recipe and got the quantities of chili powder and cayenne powder mixed up! The mistake I make in my kitchen all the time is not reading the entire recipe only to find out something takes hours to make and my tummy can not wait until midnight to eat!
I would love to hear your classic foodie mistake! Why not celebrate our stories and get over the foodie trauma together? It happens to everyone so be not afraid to confess your foodie mistakes here.
Beatrice says
Years ago, I was making pumpkin pie when I realized I was out of pumpkin pie spice. I decided to substitute curry powder, thinking that it contained some of the same spices. I’m still banned from making pumpkin pies for my family.
Suzie Ridler says
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh Beatrice, that is such a shame and OMG, I gotta say, so funny in its tragic way. I am sure you can make up for it by trying to make a pumpkin pie again, this time with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, OK?
Janice says
Thanks for visiting my blog Suzie 🙂
I am notorious for making food that is ‘well fired’ not burnt you understand, well maybe just a bit. Trouble is I get distracted! However, my worst dish was Mustard Rabbit (vegetarians look away) I was making this way back in the 1980s and it called for Dijon Mustard. I went out and bought some specially and used the quantities that the recipe specified. I’m sure you are there before me…it was so hot that we felt like the inside of our nostrils were on fire and had to give up eating it. Took me years to trust Dijon mustard again.
I’m bad for checking dates too, but my DH works in the food industry and you usually have about 3 days to a week leeway with those use by dates. Use your nose and you will know if it is off or not.
Silus Grok says
This doesn’t sound like a failing.
Expiry dates are set almost universally WAY TOO EARLY. If you don’t shop “in bulk” — filling up your frig and cupboards like tomorrow might be the Apocalypse, buying about-to-expire foods is a great way to save money.
Shop frequently, buy local.
Suzie Ridler says
Janice, that is so sad about your mustard rabbit! I think dijon is over used sometimes, it is so strong and if it’s the main flavour, no thanks!
Silus, it’s true, can’t trust those expiry dates all the time. When it comes to salad dressings though I live by them, got poisoned that way once and never again!
TheSweetOne says
I know I’ve made tons of screw ups in the kitchen but the one that comes to mind first was making bread at my mom’s for a family occasion.
In our house we have our salt in a cheese bowl a la Alton Brown. My mom, however keeps the alternate white grainy substance in a similar bowl. Without thinking, I grabbed the bowl and added sugar instead of salt to the italian bread.
It proofed beautifully, shaped beautifully, even baked perfectly. I thought I was a star.
It has nice texture but was more bland than cardboard. Even slabs of butter didn’t help.
Thankfully my family was thrilled to simply have bread baked on site and even didn’t seem to notice.
Jenn says
I used to make the expiry date mistake all the time. Then one day, I was drinking a banana flavoured “Milk To Go” purchased the same day from a grocery store and checked the expiry date which was a few weeks in the past. It still tasted fine, but since then, I’ve been a compulsive expiry date checker.
peppylady (Dora) says
One time we found a recipe for popping popcorn in sugar water well we thought it was a mistake in the book but we gave it a try and it was great,
Now I couldn’t tell you the price for apple cider at this time here.
One thing I check for is to see if it has any fructose corn syrup in it.
luckiest1 says
Using a mandolin without using the guard. I damn near cut the end of my finger off yesterday! So I have banned myself from mandolins in the future. :p