To be annoyed with MIL's almost out of date chicken?

[MrCollinsandhisboiledpotatoes]

Last night, about 4pm, MIL turns up while I was out with a pack of chicken breasts with the use by date of yesterday, puts them in our fridge and says they have to be eaten today (yesterday) as it's the last day. DH tells me when I get home that there's chicken in the fridge that must be eaten tonight.
I'm like, OK.... But I have stuff I had planned for dinner tonight and all week in fact, and I've got my own use-by dates on the stuff I bought and the week's dinners planned accordingly and now you're going to throw that all out of whack because we have to eat MIL's chicken instead, because of her poor planning and/or reluctance to throw out her own shit, you acting like her food waste bin?
But DH thinks we should be grateful?
Who's side are you on?

No, I cooked it and ate it and the leftovers are going in sandwiches. I made marry me chicken which is what I planned with my own chicken for Friday, I'm having the meal I planned for last night's dinner tonight, and so on and so forth.
But I have no current plan for Friday's chicken. I shall have to think of something and probably shop for the ingredients for it.

I'm with you. I'd find it annoying too. I plan dinners, I don't need your overspend thanks. And my house would be filled to the rafters with my mum's old crap if I didn't put a stop to it. What is that anyway? If you don't want it; why do you think I do? 😂

Problem solved, easy peasy. What’s next to stress about?🤣

Well, like I said, "I have no current plan for Friday's chicken. I shall have to think of something and probably shop for the ingredients for it."

Which is not catastrophic but mildly annoying.

So your own mum dumps useless tat off at your house but you don’t make a post about that? Instead you came to bash your MIL and hoped we would all join in 🙃

yeah OP, why have you been so lax as not to do a thread about every single annoying thing that's ever happened to you rather than having the audacity to start one thread about one thing?

It is absolutely astonishing to me that anyone would have any particular feelings on Monday afternoon about what they were going to eat on Friday night.

It isn’t about every other thing though, is it. It’s about something quite similar 😂

I'd be just as annoyed at your husband.
"See here, wife, my mother hath gifted us chicken. You must cook it tonight on pain of food poisoning. Hurry wench - to the oven with it."
I'm paraphrasing obviously

In other news- Has Katie Price found her lost husband yet? Maybe he’s stuck on the loo after eating MIL’s chicken?

🤣🤣🤣

Just throw it over the fence into your neighbours garden, that's what people round here do with left over meat.

Or post it back through your MIL's letter box.

Or cook up the whole lot, put it in a nose bag, hang it round your husbands neck and he can peck on it all whenever he needs a snack.

So many better solutions than replan your entire week's meals.

I'm totally on your side OP. My MIL used to bring random bits from her fridge - yoghurts, a couple of carrots, tins of random shit - every time they visited. It drove me mad because all that would happen was they'd go in my fridge for a bit and then get thrown out.

I think you and I are quite similar - I plan food very carefully and hate hate hate throwing things away. I've had to unclench a bit recently because I realised it was a bit over the top - sometimes it's ok just to chuck something to make life easier. But someone else messing things up is just infuriating.

I know you were asking @Chapbook not me but fwiw, I also never plan a meal unless I'm having a dinner party or something.

I buy vegetables based on what looks good/is in season/is on offer, then I buy q bit of meat/fish (not for me) on pretty much the same basis. Loads of frozen stuff in freezer at all times which gets topped up. Store cupboard stuff like pasta, flour, rice, pulses, spices etc get replaced when empty.

Then every evening I cook what I want to eat based on what I have. On the odd occasion I really fancy something and need something extra I walk to the shop. I don't waste food and if there's random meat / veg left over which is about to go over I make a stir fry, fried rice, soup, stew etc and freeze leftovers.

What happens if it's Friday and you fancy pasta not chicken?

Free food. Put it in the oven, after dinner, it'll last two or three more days in the fridge. Had you planned lunch sandwich fillings for today and tomorrow too?

Just freeze it or cook and freeze, surely your food plan is not that ridgid

Chicken breasts don’t take up a lot of room in the freezer. Or cook them and have them in a chicken sandwich for lunch or something

She is simply delegating her guilt at food waste to you. She isn’t doing you a favour at all.

This would annoy me too op.

But for me it’s because I’ve had years of my mil and fil driving me up the wall and dh doing and saying nothing.

Why didn’t your dh just tell her no thanks?

Its not out of date

MILs can obviously be annoying (as can DILs, as can anyone), but this chicken does seem to have annoyed you more than it ought to, unless you dislike her for other reasons.

I'd be annoyed if my DH always took his mother's 'side' and insisted we follow her every command, but in this case, I'd freeze the chicken or cook it and put it in the fridge, if I didn't want to eat it that day. Cooked chicken will be fine in the refrigerator for a few days. If space clears up on the freezer in the meantime, you can freeze it after cooking, too.

But it really feels that you just want to be annoyed by your MIL and the free chicken, so... have fun, I guess.

Because it's not his problem. I do the cooking and all that comes with it IE: planning and shopping.
He thought it was a nice gift.

I generally fancy the thing I'm having. Because I'm expecting it so I think about it and that makes me want it 🤷
None of my family complain. This is how it is, how it's always been and what I thought everyone did.

I really fancied what I was having for dinner last night but I had to have chicken instead.

What a palaver!

Of course you can freeze things on the last day. Some people literally do most of their food shopping on yellow stickers smd freeze it.