This is our eighth consecutive day with temperatures in the 90s, so a cold potato salad and deviled eggs sounded like good components for dinner tonight.  That reminded me that we use more mustard in the summer than in the winter, so I checked for a spare mustard in the pantry, only to discover that it expired last year.  It made sense then to check the expiration date on the mustard in the refrigerator.  Uh-oh!  It expired 18 months ago.

As a result of those revelations, Ted and I thought maybe we should check some other items in the pantry before we leave on our European trip.  It was unbelievable!  We found quite a few things that expired between 2011 and 2015, and even one that expired in 2009!  Apparently, we don’t need to keep our pantry as well stocked as we thought.  We purged all the expired items, replaced a few, and decided to hold off on buying replacements for the rest until the current box is nearly gone.

Most of the expired items were dry foods–rice, pudding, graham cracker crumbs, Jell-O, cake mixes, etc.  I don’t think any of them would have killed us if we used them, but if they’ve been sitting unopened on the shelf for one to seven years past their expiration dates, a fresh product is probably a good idea.