Tuesday 15 August 2017

Save Some

It's Tuesday. Nothing special, just a normal Tuesday, so I made just a normal supper. We had burritos. You know, the kind made with Ol' El Passo tortilla wraps and ground beef seasoned with taco seasoning. Throw on some cut up peppers, onions, cheese, and salsa and there's dinner.

My daughter was working tonight and would not be home until after 9:00. That means she will want supper when she gets home. That means I had to remind my husband, when he went back for seconds that he has to save some meat for her. There was plenty of everything else, but a limited amount of seasoned ground beef. Sometimes (often) my husband will just "clean up" the food that is still there by eating it. I do have to mention that one, or both of our kids will want some of this when they get back home. This is standard. But I still say something. I must be annoying.

There is a reason, though. I don't know if you have a husband, wife, partner, dog, whatever, that cannot be trusted around food. Although this picture is not my daughter's, it is something she has done on various occasions with leftover take out food, usually pizza. (She does not include the death part).

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Sometimes it works, other times he doesn't even look at the box. There have been many sticky notes over the years. One thing I have had to hide is cheese. God love him, he really can't be trusted with cheese. I will put cheese in the crisper drawer instead of in the drawer where we keep sandwich meat, eggs, and cheese. In the past, when I was the lunch-making mama, I would sometimes buy special sliced cheese like Havarti or swiss for sandwiches. If I did not hide it, there wouldn't be enough for sandwiches that week.

His birthday was this past week. He LOVES Stilton blue cheese. I bought him a nice big piece, but I was planning on using a bit of it in the salad and to go with the steak I was making for his birthday dinner. So, I put it in a paper pharmacy bag and kept it in our other fridge until the birthday supper. It was safe.


I work in a place where almost everybody brings their own lunch from home. There is a fridge in which you can keep your lunch if it needs to be refrigerated. Every once in a while someone mistakes someone else's food for their own. This usually happens when it is not in an actual lunch bag. Some people bring their food in just a grocery bag, or they just have a yogurt or some fruit that they put in the fridge. I find this utterly ridiculous. If I made my lunch, I would know which one is my lunch!

But what is worse, is the person who just leaves their food in the fridge, and then forgets about it. I've gone on some mighty fridge purges at work, reading "best before" dates out loud before chucking them in the garbage. The mold encrusted food, the leaking container, the shrimp dear lord the shrimp, the very very old cream... it's all been tossed after I just can't take it anymore. How do you not know you've left your food for that long??

But I digress, my theme was making sure there are leftovers for those people who are not present at meal time due to varying work schedules by reminding my husband not to eat it all. You know, this is usually only a meat issue. I've never had to say, "Leave some of that salad!" or "Make sure there are still cucumbers!" or "Don't eat the last of the carrots!" It's not that he doesn't eat vegetables, but meat is really his passion.

Not to sound perfect, if there is chocolate in the house, there really is no hiding from me!

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Sometimes chips are on sale (potato chips = crisps to my lovely English readers) so I will buy a couple of bags. Both of my children are terrible for staying up late. One likes to be in front of the tv in the den until all hours and the other prefers his bedroom with his computer. They both like to snack. I hide the chips in my bedroom closet. I think they both know they are there, but they know my closet is off limits (like little kids at Christmas who know where the presents are hidden, but don't want to spoil the surprise). I like to have snacks in reserve if someone should drop by.

There have been many times over the years when I have gone to the fridge to get something that I was planning on making, or using in a recipe, or putting in someone's lunch only to look high and low, and then utter the famous words, "R., did you eat the ________?"   They are usually followed by a , "Sorry, I didn't know!!"

I shall finish with something that perhaps a few of us can relate to:

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15 comments:

  1. I've only had it happen once. I had some leftover pizza when I stayed over at my now-wife's house. Her brother at it, I was really pissed.

    My family had a pretty good rule about not eating each other's food because that meant war.

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  2. I had a similar problem between two daughters. They grew up and took the problems to their own homes.

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  3. Thankfully my children took their - that looks nice perhaps I'll eat it - habits with them. They now are dealing with their own children's similar habits lol
    And if you don't want to share your chocolate with me don't bring it into the house 'cause I (that would be me) will find it 😊

    Cathy @ Still Waters



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  4. Love the one about eating the candy bar in the closet. Can totally relate to that. Keeping my hands off the kids choc was always a trial too.
    Now we've got a teenage grandson who stays over. No use telling him to leave food alone. Like you I have to hide it or disguise it.

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  5. HAHAHA! I laughed out loud with this post. Perhaps your husband was a dog in a previous life. I don't have this problem with my husband because he doesn't eat much but I do have this problem with one of our cats. She is forbidden from going on the kitchen counter but, like all cats, all rules are suspended when we're sleeping. So there is never any unexposed food on the counter. That furball will eat just about anything she can get her jaws on. We never give her human food but if something falls on the floor, she'll grab it if she can. The other day she was meowing over a rice cake. I told my husband that never in a million years would she eat this dry, tasteless thing and he said "sure she would". We decided to break the rule of no human food and give her a small piece. Sure enough, she gobbled it down. I wonder if she was a dog in a past life! She'll eat anything. She's gotten a hold of popcorn, BBQ chips, cheese and even pretzels, and loved them all.

    As for me, that last image is definitely something I've done! I have hidden treats because I just didn't want to share them.

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  6. Conversation..... Me "would you like me to get anything for you?(chocolate, cake, other tasty things) Him.... "No thanks".
    So I get something for me and then he wants some of whatever it is - GRRRRRRR!

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  7. Guilty as charged. Hide chocolate on a regular basis. Great post...made me laugh!

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  8. Boy, can I relate to the office refrigerator! There are only three of us now and I don't know how many times "one" of us (not me - I'm near perfect...) will leave little bits of this and that, leftovers from restaurant meals, old fruit, you-name-it, for days! Every Friday, I go through and pitch what can't be given to the chickens.

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  9. Ha ha ha ha I do the same thing! I currently have a box of Goldfish single serve bags, some ginger ale, some Gatorade, Pellegrino, and a bag of Tostitos in my closet!!! And I label things in the fridge also - usually with "Mom's! Don't touch!" with a frownie face.

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  10. I so identify with the 2 cartoons. I'm such a chocoholic. Chocolate and I cannot share the same space, I will devour it. My husband loves cheese and I frequently buy him a big chunk of Montery Jack. But he's so good about sharing, much better than I am.

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  11. There is just the two of us, but sometimes the cats will stalk our food.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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  12. Lol...food isn't safe here either! It's mainly cheese and snacks. I label EVERYTHING and it works for us. Alex knows that I won't go back out to shop until the end of our month so he reads my labels "reserved for X meal". When I write the meal it's for, it motivates him not to nibble on it!

    I LOVE Stilton on graham crackers! :) When I worked in an office, I was the administrator and therefore the maid, uh, the person who cared enough to empty the fridge each end of week. There was a general rule, if you don't claim it, don't whine if it's gone by Monday morning.

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  13. I keep chocolate and cookies in the freezer but that doesn't stop me eating either frozen if I am desperate enough. Also there's always an emergency bar of chocolate in my bedside table just in case I wake up ravenous in the middle of the night.

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  14. Oh, yes, food! It's such an integral part of our lives. Or at least certain kinds of food are for better or worse. I'm not much on chocolate, but I can't keep potato chips in the house or I will devour them.

    When I was growing up, we never had what would be classified as candy in the house except for in an Easter basket or at Halloween time. My mom was always overweight. She still had a nice figure, but there was a lot of it. There was a time after I was grown and we were having an "adult" conversation. I told her it had always amazed me that she kept so much weight on because I never (and I mean never) saw her eat anything more than a normal serving of food. She replied easily and with all honesty, "Oh, I always had my own private stash of candy at home and ate it throughout the day." I had no idea!

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  15. Ah yes, the old kids eating the food they weren't supposed to eat because it had another purpose. Or the old, "I thought that was my lunch -- sorry" trick. Been around all of those. Labels are a FINE thing!

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