Do you follow Use by and Sell by Dates, and other food safety issues

needmoney

I'm not qualified but I'd go along with morwenna

Louweasel

I'm not qualified either but my aromatherapy book (which is very sensible and quite comprehensive) says what morwenna says - after about two years they won't be as effective therapeutically but if you are using them when teh pimary purpose is the smell, then they are fine.
The book seems to imply that they might not work as well but not that they'd be bad or harmful in any way.

furrypig

thanks for the lentils in soup idea, hopefully I'll get some more ideas!

catkinq

rice and dahl? (cook the red lentils, skimming off any skum, until think and mushy. Fry some garlic, chopped onion and spices and salt (I use garum masala) in oil/butter/ghee), add to lentils. (I also add chopped spring onions and tomatoes). serve with white rice - t is one of our favorite meals - you cna make it as runny/garlicy/spicy as you like). Brown rice is good cold as a salad with a dressing of rice vinigar, soya sauce and seseme oil (equal quantities of each), brown lentils go well as a veggie meat subsitute in things like cottage pie (cook and mix with tomato sauce).

Sassamac

prunes you can just eat as they are as a dessert.
My mum showed me how to make somthing called Sad cake (never heard of it but she cooks very OS so some of you experts may know of it) on boxing day with leftover mincemeat and we chucked in some dried prunes I had in the cupboard. they too were out of date and it was fine. just drain the juice off if yours are the tinned variety.

noonesperfect

I'm always a bit wary with nuts as they go rancid easily, but I've got easily enough grounds almonds and dried fruit etc to make another (Bero recipe) Xmas cake.
My OH loves my Xmas cake and was wondering if I make another if is likely to last until July if I keep feeding with booze - bearing in mind best before is end of January for the ground almonds. (I don't really care for simnel cake I might have made one of those)

seraphina

I should think it would be fine - but I'll eat anything:rotfl:

You could also consider making a flourless cake - there are quite a few recipes for flourless chocolate cake, or almond and lemon cake, that use ground almonds instead of flour.

furrypig

Thank you for your replies especially catkinq as this was her very first post so welcome to the addictive world that is mse!

Sassamac I'm gonna look up Sad cake on google now!!! Thanks

Sassamac

furrypig, it was very simple, not much more than just mincemeat, and dried fruit in a cornish pasty style pastry.

SUESMITH_2

we found the remains of a christmas cake this year which was a couple of years old and it was fine to eat - i do feed mine with lots of booze though.

dont forget traditionally you kept the top tier of your wedding cake for the christening of your first child.