I am laughing at the fact that I am going to share this but I know that a ton of the folks that visit the site like to cook, so I am reaching out for your thoughts or comments on this.
I cooked off a whole turkey, and I have been using it up, I made this dish and that dish and made broth with the bones but you can only eat so much turkey and then you want something different, somehow one of the legs got left in the back of the fridge.. now I keep my fridge cold, but its been a number of days, I smelled it, its not bad but its not smelling fresh either.. I touch it with clean hands, it feels right.. Of course if I had remembered it, freezing it would have been the way to go for safety.
So being me, I pick the skin off, it goes to the hounds, and pull the meat, cut it up and put it to start a soup that I will boil well and simmer for a few hours while I cook it, I’m making a nice turkey, rice, veggie soup..
Now here is the catch, I would not be willing to pull that turkey and serve it on a sandwhich because its just a bit off.. but I am more then willing to use it in a long cooking soup or stew..
So as the post titles says.. am I just really Frugal or just Stupid 😉 ?
ps, Please don’t just qoute what the standard line would be.. if in doubt, throw it out.. instead give me a honest view of what you would do in your own home..
Just another Day on the Farm 
Our food budget is tight, with a very hungry, growing family, so I would probably do the same thing. I would check to make sure it isn’t slimey, have mold or other imperfections, and just go with it.
But, I tend to push the envelope of ‘left-overs’, being that I let everything go for about a week, before tossing it if it is left un-eaten. (Which by the way, happens very infrequently!)
A good friend of mine is the opposite, three days is it. But, her family doesn’t eat leftovers, so I guess it probably isn’t a good comparison…
ps. I made sushi at home for the first time! It didn’t look pretty at all, but it tasted pretty much like the california rolls at the restaurant. We love the sushi ginger and bought the only bottle (which was HUGE) at the Asian grocery locally. There is no way we can eat enough sushi to use it all – any ideas for other uses?
hmm, it’s ginger, so you should be able to use it finely diced in any recipe that you can use ginger in, so could go in soups/stews, stir-fry’s, could be diced fine and put in salads, or mixed with mayo and used as a sandwich dressing.
You could use it in sweet/sour sauce, put some in a blender with water, and then make a typical sweet/sour for meat or veggies, it would just make it ginger sweet and sour.. hmmm that sounds good.. Let me know what you decide to make with it.
I am pretty frugal too but I would have just tossed it. We eat leftovers but if its been there more than a week it’s a goner in my book. Let us know what happens.
well, its been 72 hours and so far, nothing has happened, we both feel fine.., so all appears good, if anything happens later, will let you know..
If it doesn’t smell good, I don’t eat it, and I don’t serve it to the kids. I try to make sure that food is packaged in small enough amounts and stored (canned, usually) so that I don’t end up with a ton of one thing sitting in the fridge.
If meat is sitting in broth, under a good layer of fat, I’ll sometimes bring it to a boil, simmer for a little while and then put it back in the fridge. But I do that BEFORE it’s at the “do I toss it or not” stage.
I’ll be honest, though – Mr. Doom would do (has done) exactly as you did, and he lives through it. 🙂
Well, it passed the first test, When I am in doubt of if I should or should not in regards to meat, and I’m going to boil it, I start it in water and bring it to a boil, if its gone to the dark side, the smell will let me know in a hurry, in which case, its going to get fresh water, boiled again and go to the cast-iron tummy of the hounds.
In this case, the smell was fine, so I continued making it into soup, I will let you know if we end up with any issues from it.
I know this is an old post – but I just found you and am reading old entries. My rule is 4 days max or I freeze it. Some stuff smells off to me even before the 4 days. I try to determine if I will use it up before then and if not, I freeze or give to my single sister who hates cooking 🙂
Welcome Kim, look forward to your thoughts on things, I popped over to your site and see that you are also in ontario..
Four days or in the freezer is certainly a nice safe rule, Does the sister who hates to cook use it or throw it out?