Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Oh, I havea few, and only myself to blame. There are 2 different small jars of curry paste, which I just never remember that I own, and a lone can of coconut milk that would love to be introduced. There's a can of sweet potatoes, which I would eat but my husband won't, but it's a big can, so there they've been for close to 3 years now (I should know better than to move a can of food, twice). There's a nearly full bag of tapioca, which I bought almost 2 years ago for an unusual fish recipe but need to employ more conventionally, especially since I just learned that the husband does indeed like tapioca pudding. A small container of millet, I have no idea what to do with.

Those are my few truly unused items. I unfortunately have a host of "last bits" of all kinds of things, which I never get around to using because in my mind, I'm saving them for a better opportunity. I have many half-cups of all kinds of rice and grains and nuts.

Well, one of my favorite things to do is come up with interesting (or at least edible) ways to get rid of the bits and bobs of food that accumulate, or the odd foods I get as gifts, so I don't tend to have many things that hang about.

I do have the "evil soup" though. Years ago when houses were meshed, a can of chicken noodle soup was among the pantry contents of one of the meshers. It is generic. Now before you yell at me for being a snob about generic foods let me explain:
This was not regular generic, like you would find at the grocery or even the discount store. I have no issue with what we all tend to think of as 'generic' and buy them often. However, I have not seen a label like this since the Kroger Cost-Cutter days of the plain yellow packaging that just said "Beer" or "Chips" or "Macaroni".

This blue can just says "Chicken Noodle Soup". No brand name to be found, the basic nutrition info on the back, and a blurry pic of a spoon holding pale sickly colored liquid with three yellow strands and a whitish square (meant to be the chicken I think...)
For a few months after the meshing we kept it in case we got strapped enough to have to eat it. We did not, and then we thought about sticking it in one of the food drive bags for the mailman, yet felt guilt over the nasty looking can and stuck with better canned foods for the needy.
I would swear that since then both of us have thrown it out, I clearly remember doing so and the other person swears he did not fish it from the trash and put it back...yet it is in the cupboard still.
Maybe I will go toss it again and see if it comes back. Now THAT would be a real pantry ghost! :)

Furikake - I was up to the eyeballs in the American bento craze, and bought about eight flavors of furikake in two or three crazed (but very happy) shopping trips.

Now, they wouldn't be pantry ghosts if my doctor hadn't told me to quit eating salt. >:(

Hehe, I thought you were going to talk about food mysteriously disappearing. To which my response would have been: Uh, yeah. They're called roommates! Tee hee.

But yes. My mother has had a couple of cans of tomato soup since I was in high school. That is nearly four years ago. She also HOARDS tomato paste, canned/crushed tomatoes and those garlic shell side dish mixes. They are delicious and eat them when I go home...but she must have enough to survive us through the time I have kids (uhhh...about 6 years away, LOL).

I also stockpile canned soup and boxes of pasta. It's so cheap, when it goes on sale...I stock up. But I never eat it fast enough. Therefore, vicious cycle!

Brooke--that is such a wonderful term to use for what I always think of just as 'unused things'--but you're right, it is more than just the 'unused' it is something that is there, that you know is never likely to go away....

I don't really drink but two years ago I had an unusual toothache, and to get through the night until I could see a dentist, I bought 2 small bottles of Sutter Home white wine. They are still there. I could use them, but don't see the point to force myself for the sake of it.

I have a few tiny boxes of sugary cereal. I hardly eat cereal, but I bought an assortment box after having a small cereal craving--after reading Serious Eats! I ate the flavors I wanted, not I have Froot Loops, Corn Pops and a few others left, and probably won't eat them.

I think we all need to hold our collective hands and exorcise the pantry ghosts--by throwing them out.

I always think those sort of horrid and unappetizing 'old foods' at Marshalls and TJ Maxx, like the cake mixes and oils in gift boxes from 2007 are destined to become pantry ghosts....

I have some Quinoa, a few herb and grain side dish mixes, and potato flakes that I bought for a recipe. I recently threw out a quater cup of red lentils ans a similar amount of unsweetened dried coconut. Baby steps.

@Sara, I can't get sushi-making out of my head lately. I know it's easier to buy it, but I really want to try it at home. Are your rice and nori ghosts fairly fresh? If so, maybe we could arrange a trade: my herb and grain side dish mixes are natural products and unopened. Let me know if you are interested!

Marmite! I don't hate it but I don't love it, and it makes me laugh when I see it, so it stays. Also, my tin of McCann's oatmeal; I never seem to be inclined to eat it, but the tin is pretty.

I have about a cup of dried navy beans, a can of refried beans, half a bag of red lentils (I realized I don't really know how to use the red lentils, and have been avoiding them ever since), and a full bag of the Trader Joe's Harvest Grains mix (I bought two bags, because I thought I'd like it. I hate it. I made it through the first bag, but I'll never touch the second one).

A bottle of Kinnie soda from Malta that I brought back as a souvenir and will not consume, because I want to keep it like that.

*Many* tins of a brand of soup that my used to love and is now verboten, due to its high salt content, and frankly, I don't care for it, either. However, we haven't had a food drive recently, so they are in a box waiting for that opportunity.

A half a bag of rice flour, since every recipe that I find seems to call for *just* more than what I have, so I would have to buy yet another one. too bad that this one is already several years old.

A GIANT jar of tamarind paste from an Indian recipe that I made about from years ago. Wwe had a local Indian grocer where I finally found it, but if you don't cook with it very often, who needs a huge jar of it? Really. Oh well.

About five boxes of various pastas. Both of my parents are pre-diabetic and now relaly allowed to have those anymore, and after serving at an Italian restaurant for a long time, where I would eat pasta at least twice per shift, I can't stomach the stuff much anymore. At least not for awhile.

A few bags of salted potato chips - all half-empty, all the same variety and flavor - because once again my parents are no longer allowed...and before that point they would open a bag and then forget where they had put it, and tell me to buy another...open that....okay, you get the idea.

I have so many more....

I have a can of coconut milk, a can of clam chowder which I have never liked, a box of couscous, and various generic soups. Ordinarily I don't mind generic (it is cheaper after all), but there are some things that to me are just not as good. Generic soup is one of those. My husband will eat it, but I have to cook it.

I have a couple cans of refried beans that I got a while ago on a Mexican kick and have had for a long time now. I really need to use them up.

I have a practically ancient box of Betty Crocker (or Duncan Hines - I can never keep those brands straight!) Angel Food Cake mix. And when I say ancient, I mean the packaging looks like something you'd see Alice pull out of the cupboard on The Brady Bunch.

I also have a can of generic, horrible petite diced canned tomatoes. Why I bought them is a mystery, but why I keep them is an even bigger one! Adding to the mix are a few boxes of potato flakes (why??) and assorted flours. Also the requisite can of black eyed peas which never quite found their way to the stove top after a few glasses of champagne. I feel a spring cleaning (or summer project - I work in a school) coming on...because I KNOW there are countless others lurking in the depths of my pantry. As well as in the door of my refrigerator!

@meleyna - he really is awfully cute! :-)

@brooke--Sure he, he looks just like his mom. ;)

string them and hang them on a bush the birds will love them

I have a couple cans of tuna that have been on my self for a couple of years now. I didn't buy them. They were sent instead of the pouched tuna I ordered (I love pouched tuna) I hate canned tuna so much, yet I can't throw them out. I mean, what if a meteor hits or something and the only thing that will keep me alive are those two disgusting cans of fishy ickyness? Yeah, then I'll be sorry.

@melenya - your kitchen ghost is adorable!

@chisai--You want him? Trade you that tuna!

Kidding--sort of. Ask me tomorrow at 5:30 AM when he's up and wants breakfast.

People! Give me your coconut milk! This stuff is great for subbing as buttermilk for vegan baked goods, and I love making coconut sweet rice.

Since I moved into this place I live in now late last May, I haven't gotten much in terms of Pantry Ghosts, but I do have three different jars of molasses. Kept a jar at the boyfriend's, had one at my old place. Moved in with my parents, broke up with the boyfriend, and bought another jar for no reason. Now I have three, and molasses isn't something one uses terribly often.

And I have udon noodles of unclear age.

also i have a "car ghost"... its bag of pinto beans i found abandoned in my bf's apartment building, itll probably be in my backseat forever [there were actually two bags, but i just unloaded one on my mom ;) "here, want some beans?" "jes, why do you have this?" "i found it."]

@cycorider - OK, you've inspired me. I'm going to cook up some "out of sequence" shaped pasta this weekend! The bunnies would make sense because it's Lent but I'm going to be a real rogue and make...The Christmas Trees! :D

I used to donate my hurricane kit every year after hurricane season was officially over. I have NO idea how none of my other "pantry ghosts" missed being included.

@mollykate678: I'll see your can of petite diced tomatoes, and raise you a can of petite diced tomatoes *with* bell peppers! I hate canned bell peppers, they have this horrific taste that just reminds me of bile. I bought it by accident one day when I bought a whole crate of regular canned tomatoes, and this little monster had snuck into the box with them. It's been sitting in my cupboard for three years now.

Also hiding in my cupboards, a can of eight year old La Choy chop suey (thanks Mom) a can of La Choy fried rice noodles (thanks again Mom), and enough hot chocolate that it takes up an entire shelf in my cupboards. Two boxes of Swiss Miss, *five* canisters of Ghirardelli hot cocoa in miscellaneous flavors, a big box of those Abuelita tablets, and fianlly, a half-gallon of homemade mix from a Good Eats episode (why did I make it when I already had all this? Who knows!) And did I mention I live in SoCal, where it never gets cold?

I really have to agree with HeartofGlass - things that are unsuitable to be donated to a local food pantry need to be tossed! What are you holding on to? Everyone needs a good honest pantry cleaning session at least once a year.

I think the strangest thing I have in the pantry (that's gone unused for 3 years and two out of state moves) is Chicken of the Sea BBQ Salmon in a pouch that was given to me when it was a new product and I was working for a retail grocery chain. We always got new products before they went on the store shelves but this one? I'm afraid to open it but for some reason have not thrown it out.

@gentlyferal-
I'll gladly take that furikake off your hands! I will even pay for the postage. Email me at molliebethstar (at) yahoo

Before you donate your ghost items to the food kitchen, please check the dates on the cans and packages and if they are way out of date, just throw them away.

We do a food drive every year at my school and I am shocked at what people will send in. Just because people are in need does not mean they should eat nasty outdated food.

I was amazed at the variety of things people did send in - right down to a box of hair color and a bottle of KY~!!

How about a real, live "ghost" working the pantry? We had a mouse who cleverly nibbled through the plastic bag on the back side of a new loaf of bread mistakenly left on the shelf overnight, ate right through the middle of the loaf so it appeared untouched, and vanished. Not outside of a Pain Quotidien had I seen holes that large in a slice. The loaf "left" in a heartbeat.

I've got a little tiny package of sweet potato pancake mix-it was given to us as a gift about 8 years ago. Every time I see it I tell myself I'm never going to use it but I just can't seem to take it out of the cupboard. And then there's my tuna collection....I don't think there's anything over a year old but I'm kind of afraid to look. Oh yeah-I forgot about my husband's great panic of 2000-he insisted on putting a bunch of canned chili, sweet corn, and green beans in the basement. I hope they're still there-I've not been able to get to the shelf he put them on in a very long time.

@CheesePlease - my OH is telling me it's got to be mid-1980s! And yes, you'd better keep it:-)

Chinese salted black beans still nicely vacuum sealed.
Seafood stock in a carton...better use that one sooon.
Chinese cloud ear fungus.
Loads of european powdered gelatin packs, sent by the in-laws (I needed gelatin sheets and have since used them all up. Powdered gelatin is a little bit harder to use...)

There's a loaf of garlic bread in the freezer from last May. I bought two, stuck one in the freezer and started eating the other loaf. I would eat a slice or two each day. During this time I started to have stomach "issues". Now, that's not unusual for me but they came during the time I was eating this bread which, by the way, was super tasty. I stopped eating the bread and a couple of days later I felt much better. I still have this loaf in the freezer because I want to give it a second chance but I know that wouldn't be such a good idea. I just can't seem to throw it away. Every time I open my freezer it looks so sad in the corner.

Potted meat food product.

Wow. Some of this stuff I have never heard of.
My own pantry/fridge ghosts...

-- Jar of olives, purchased for FIL's martinis. He's only visited once in the past two years; those olives are still there.

-- Four kinds of salsa, purchased or gifted for parties. I don't like salsa, so they stay until the next fiesta.

-- Stirrings "Simple Margaritas" mix. Ick. Maybe my dear husband bought it?

-- Artichoke spinach dip that expired last September.

-- The freezer is where stock ingredients go to die. I have never made stock, but I know I should and I keep meaning to ... Ina has a great recipe in "Back to Basics" that I am determined to attempt.

I have some saffron I've had for over 10 years. I've never used it and don't know if it's still safe or edible but hate to discard anything so expensive.

The saffron is from before I started using a Sharpie to put the purchase date on everything that goes in the pantry, fridge, or freezer. Try it -- you'll be surprised how comforting it is.

A 20 year-old gallon jar of pickled jalepeno peppers. A nice conversation piece when hosting a Mexican fiesta.
Instant oatmeal circa 2005. Probably the last time I had my cholesteral checked.
Whole wheat spaghetti circa 2006.

yes. a bag of shredded coconut my husband got for a recipe he never made and refuses to let me make. i really dont know what to do with shredded coconut. if you have any suggestions, please recommend!

I've got a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti-Os that's been in my pantry for about five years, a friend who's since passed away brought it to me as a joke hostess "gift" when attending a dinner party at my house. I can't bear to part with it, since it makes me smile and think of him when i see it.

My mom has spices from my Grandma's kitchen, which she brought home (along with the G-ma) back in 1990. Yes, that's right, 20 year old spices. Or they would be 20 years old, except that my Grandma bought them in the 70's.

I keep trying to make her throw them away, but at this point I think she's keeping them as a momento.

I just got a brand new pantry ghost last night – but only because it's a food we're not accustomed to eating: fresh cilantro/coconut chutney made for us by the dinner guest who came over last night. We have about a pint of it, I think. It's great stuff, and the guy who made it says it goes with anything, so maybe it won't linger for long.