Shhh! Don't tell my family!

I have a confession to make: If you have ever read Ruth Reichl's "Tender at the Bone," I am her crazy mother! I bought two tubs of Ricotta Cheese a month ago to make a lasagne. I used a full tub of one and just a bit of the other. Forgetting that I had used a portion of the other, I put it in my future plans to eventually use the other tub. This was the week I decided to use it. I didn't want to make lasagne again. I perused my box of recipes-clipped from magazines that sounded good at a glance (most have yet to be tried) and found a recipe called Lasagne-Style Ziti. It uses 15 oz. of Ricotta Cheese which would be perfect for what I had. I remembered that the expiration on the tub said June something, which left me certain it would still be in a decent state when I was ready to use it.
I did my shopping this week, tres excited to buy the needed ingredients. Timing the preparation and cooking time perfectly so I could bestow my creation upon my family at the dinner hour, I pulled everything out of my fridge and pantry that the recipe called for. I was happily chopping and sauteing, (Rachel Ray, step aside)looking forward to tasting this promising dish. I opened that carton of Ricotta and beheld that it was teeming with mold. Not just your normal green, fuzzy mold, yes, that, but also a beet-red mold that I had never seen before. I was aghast, agog, and bewildered. How could it have gone bad? In my mind, I had never used any...but then the memory came back to me that I had indeed used some (a month or so ago). What was to be done? I had all the other ingredients. The pasta was boiling. The onions sauteing.I contemplated running to the store, but I couldn't leave my post. I asked my 18 year old if he would like to run to the store for me. He said, "Sorry, Mom, I can't. I'm practicing voice"...Every parent knows that when your child is practicing for any lesson or doing their homework, you don't want to stop them for fear they will lose their focus and never return.
I stared at that mold for quite a while. I thought of our elders who lived through the Great Depression. What would they do? I thought of my aunt raising nine children on a limited budget, what would she do? "Of course", I boldly declared to myself, they would cut out that mold and use the untainted/salvagable "parts". I grabbed a spoon and started scraping. I only had to dig a 1/2 an inch or so. The rest of the contents were pristene, white, creamy and smelled relatively normal. Glancing about me to make sure I was alone, I discarded the evidence and emptied the remaining contents into my shiny, clean bowl. As I added the fresh Parmesan and spinach to it, I felt waves of guilt and worry. "What if we all get sick?" "What if those mold spores are still there, just not visible to the human eye yet?" I brushed these thoughts aside and rationalized that it will be baked at 400 degrees. Surely THAT should kill anything lurking.
Yes, I did it. I baked it and served it to my unassuming family. Jordan had 3 or four servings. It tasted good. I have argued with myself all evening that I should be proud of myself for being so "resourceful" and "brave" while the other part of me, upon remembering that book, keeps saying "you're that crazy mother!" I suppose if we're all still alive tomorrow, it won't matter. And if we're sicker than dogs, I'll confess to my family and start a support group called CICI. ("Chuck it or Chuck it".)