Emu with a Clue

Re-heating leftovers

nobody@vox.com(Emu with a Clue) — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:44:21 -0700

As a working mum who cooks in bulk on the weekend, I found this advice was pretty helpful:

Paula Goodyer
May 8, 2008

We might know better than to let raw meat rub shoulders with raw broccoli on the chopping board but we're not always so cluey about leftovers. The pasta sauce you made on Monday might smell OK on Thursday but is it still safe to eat? Cooking meals ahead on weekends to eat through the week might get you a gold star for efficiency but what is their shelf life in the fridge?

The fact that more of our food is prepared in advance - and that we're eating out more - is blamed for the growth in cases of food poisoning in Australia. Still, according to figures from the Food Safety Information Council, you could be in safer hands in your own kitchen. The guess is that it's probably only 12 to 20 per cent of the 5 million or so cases occurring in Australia each year that are caused by home cooks, often because food has been kept at the wrong temperature or reheated incorrectly.

One problem about knowing if food is still safe to eat is that you can't always rely on your nose: last week's milk might smell and taste really off but may not be harmful, while a four-day-old still-fragrant curry might be brewing enough bugs to make you ill.

The first rule about leftovers is don't let them hang around on the stovetop while you linger over dessert or empty the dishwasher. As soon as food has stopped steaming, get it into the fridge, says Lydia Buchtmann from Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Her own system is to decant any leftovers into plastic containers at the same time as she's serving dinner and put them in the fridge.

If there's a lot of leftover food to put away - or you're cooking in advance - it's best to divide it into small portions to cool rather than putting large quantities of soup or a casserole into one big container, she says. The idea is to speed up the cooling process so that bacteria have less chance to grow. This is also important with pasta and rice - foods that might seem less dodgy than others but which can harbour the sneaky Bacillus cereus that can produce a toxin, especially in foods that are cooled slowly. Because this toxin is heat-resistant, it's not destroyed by reheating. Don't count on cold to knock it dead - it can keep growing in the fridge.

Cooking ahead for the week? Buchtmann's advice is to freeze meals unless they're to be eaten in two to three days. When you reheat them they should be served really hot all the way through (at least 75 degrees).

Can you reheat dishes a third time? It's probably not a problem if they've previously been refrigerated promptly, Buchtmann says - but dividing dishes into small portions means you're less likely to need a third reheating.

What about reheating leftover takeaway? The safest approach, she says, is only if the food has been refrigerated as soon as it has stopped steaming.

Cooking for the week ahead

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Eating less processed food

nobody@vox.com(Emu with a Clue) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:16:03 -0700

Liked these tips for eating less processed food in Paula Goodyer's Sydney Morning Herald blog (she got them from Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma):

Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognise as food
Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number.
Avoid food products that make health claims (food products making health claims are in packets and more likely to be processed, he points out)
Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle - processed foods dominate the center aisles, while fresher food is around the walls.
Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. Pollan's advice here is to try and shop at farmer's markets whenever you can.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan

Can't say I always stick to these rules (especially regarding the 5 ingredients) but they are good ones to aim for, I thought.

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Boring Saturday morning stuff

nobody@vox.com(Emu with a Clue) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:29:56 -0800

Just to be even more boring, below the yoga picture is my shopping list for today. I usually try and knock it over on my way home from yoga but can't do that this morning as didn't think I could ask anyone to mind little J for me at 7:30am (a lovely friend did offer but thought that might be stretching the friendship a bit).

Yoga_may20

Milk
Bread (nothing with obvious seeds)
Rice bubbles (attempt to cater to ds's breakfast fussiness)
Yoghurt (plain and flav)
Loo paper (can't believe how much of this we go through!)
food contribution for holiday care (ie, something unhealthy like white bread rolls and hot dogs)
Burritoes (aka 'roly poly bread')
Pasta (have run out of the nice stuff from Pasta Factory in Leichhardt so will be on the Barilla for a while - ds actually prefers it)
Cars icypoles (ds just asked me to add this to the list - we'll see!)
Mince (I like this as I can cook up a whole batch, sneak some grated vegies in and serve in different ways, eg, burritoes, spag bol, rice and mince etc etc)
Bones (for Mollie the dog)
Chicken wings (another kid favourite - bake them with a bit of olive oil, salt and paprika)
Something to roast, eg, leg of lamb
Fish (kids view fish eating as similar to torture but try and get at least one fish meal into them per week)
Cucumber (kids go through loads of these - must be the Lebanese type though)
Tomatos (large plus cherry ones)
Lettuce (has to be cos)
Rocket (just not a salad without rocket)
fetta cheese (really like the Bulgarian one but trying to stick to the low-fat Australian kind with the texture like rubber)
Muesli
Pizza bases (usually make pizzas as a Fri night treat)
Tomato puree/passata (buy the bottles in bulk as this is something else we go through by the crate-load)
Mangoes
Stone fruit
Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Grapes
Water melon
zucchini
asparagus (my favourite 'convenience vegetable')
snow peas
carrots

Also have to go to the dental imaging place as looking at getting implants and other dental work done. Can probably see the awful state of two front teeth in the photo. Going to be a very, very expensive business! Watch this space.

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