OT Food Expiration Question

I am hoping someone knows the answer.  I bought some Jimmy Dean cooked turkey sausage patties about a month ago for about $5,  which is a lot to me.  Anyway, I promptly put them in the refridgerator and forgot about them.  I wanted to use them tonight but they expired on April 15th.  The package says "use or freeze by April 15, 2011".  I wish I had thought to freeze them but I thought I was going to use them right away.
Anyway, should I toss them or give them a try?  They are vacuum packed and I haven't opened them to check out the smell.  I throw out so much food because I can't eat it before they expire.  I also have 2 lbs of cooked ground beef in a container that have been in there for about a week  or so.  Should I toss that, too?

The jimmy dean might be ok...u should be able to tell just by opening it up...i dont think i would chance the ground beef tho at this point I have the same problem.

Thank you.  I hate throwing away food.  I try to buy the smallest quanity of vegetables and stuff as possible.  I really hate throwing away leftovers from restaurants.  I give as much as I can to my dogs.  They have really been getting a lot of treats since I had surgery.

I had to laugh.  My dog has been thoroughly enjoying life after my surgery.  He finishes just about everything, including the asparagus!  At least it's healthy stuff, right?  The poor puppy is a total bread hound!

I would toss the beef, but as long as the turkey saisage smells ok and doesn;t feel slimy when you open it, I would THINK it is probably ok.

I, too, feel bad about the amount of food that I waste.  I have a vacuum sealer, and that helps, but I'm single so I just cannot use up everything before it goes bad.

Lora

when you come home with stuff from the store, why not just re pacakge it into smaller servings like in small ziplock baggies, and put in the freezer....then just pull out what you will need for that single serve...i do that all the time....it only takes a few min to put into baggies, if you get them out, opend and lined up on counter....sometimes hubby helps, he holds baggies open while i dump in what i have, and then he zips them....we get it done really quick that way...
as for both of your items..i would pitch, them as i dont let things stay very long in my fridge...just dont want to take the chance of it being bad..
have a great day
debby