Food safety questions

1. A few weeks ago, I made garlic pickles according to a recipe that involves soaking the cloves in white vinegar in the fridge for a couple of weeks and then draining off the vinegar and pouring soy sauce over the garlic. I put the strained garlicky vinegar in a bottle, intending to use it for salads, and put it on a shelf. The vinegar, which was a clear pale yellow when first drained from the garlic, is now somewhat cloudy, with particulate in it. Should I have refrigerated it?

Is it safe to use? I know that wine vinegar sometimes develops a "mother" at room temperature, which doesn't affect the safety of the vinegar. If this is mold or yeast growing, can I filter it out and boil the vinegar?

2. A recent fridge cleaning netted far too many items that were beyond useability. They had been shoved to the back of the refrigerator and forgotten. I try to keep leftovers, etc., front and center till they're used up, but I'm often foiled.

How do you keep leftovers and opened food containers from being mislaid in this way? Perhaps more importantly, how do you keep other members of your household from pushing such items to the back of the fridge?

5% acetic acid is usually the minimum acidity for safe preservation. Depending on how much garlic was in there it's possible that you reduced the acidity of the vinegar. I'd err on the side of caution, but that's just me.

Here is what I have done to organize my refrigerator which is old. My fridge of course has door space for bottles and milk and the typical meat and fruit and vegetable drawers. First I bought two plastic lazy susans (I think that is what they are called..circulate plastic things that turn around) and put two of them on the top shelf of my refrigerator. On those I put jams, mustards, pickles or other condiments which are short. The taller items such as salad dressings or catsup go in the door. I am the kind that might have quite a few jams, olives, gardiera, etc. so I need room for those. You can find things much easier just by spinning these around and nothing get shoved to the back. In the back of these I put the baking soda deodorizer boxes.

Then I went to the hardware store and where they sell shelving and drawer and closet organizers I bought two clear plastic shallow "boxes" without lids..these are meant to be drawer organizers but they work perfectly in the fridge. I put those in the second shelf down. Then to get access to things I just pull the plastic box and I can see everything in it and nothing is shoved in the back. I put things I do not want to spoil or things I use all the time like a tub of parmesan or cut up lemons. In the back of the fridge where things usually get lost I store things I do not use often. For example I have a plastic tub of raw brown rice there. You can buy rubbermade lazy susans and the plastic boxes at most hardware stores and also on line.

Here is a link to bins similar to what I bought although mine were not really designed for the fridge.

http://www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?itemI ... ctID=15845

http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Page ... D=RP091528

Easy organization: very early, every Saturday morning, I go through the fridge and do a keep/toss. If during the week it looks messy and I need dinner ideas, I may do it then and create a "must go" dinner. (Eat it or it must go)

Truly, I have given up expecting family to keep it neat. I have a basket in there for deli meats/cheese and half the time I find salami just tossed back in there, loose.

PKramer wrote:If during the week it looks messy and I need dinner ideas, I may do it then and create a "must go" dinner. (Eat it or it must go)

It seems like most of my dinners lately are "eat it or it must go." (See "Getting carried away in the produce aisle.") Also, my freezer is overfilled with leftovers and bags of past-their-prime produce and trimmings put away for future soup making.

toria wrote:Here is what I have done to organize my refrigerator which is old. My fridge of course has door space for bottles and milk and the typical meat and fruit and vegetable drawers. First I bought two plastic lazy susans (I think that is what they are called..circulate plastic things that turn around) and put two of them on the top shelf of my refrigerator. On those I put jams, mustards, pickles or other condiments which are short. The taller items such as salad dressings or catsup go in the door. I am the kind that might have quite a few jams, olives, gardiera, etc. so I need room for those. You can find things much easier just by spinning these around and nothing get shoved to the back. In the back of these I put the baking soda deodorizer boxes.
http://www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?itemI ... ctID=15845

http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Page ... D=RP091528

Toria, this is an awesome idea!
My top shelf is like an expedition...
I'm going to use this idea ASAP!

Yes these ideas help quite a bit. You can get at all the jars and stuff easier. Just make sure you measure before you buy to make sure whatever you buy fits. If you go to a hardware store like Ace they generally have stuff like this but you can get it on line too.

Also I hate to waste food too but I have stopped saving so many things in my freezer. I hate it when there is a bunch of stuff there "mystery items" and they get thrown away anyway. One help is to buy the freezer label and mark everything. I am trying to waste less food but sometimes things get buried only to get thrown out later. boo hoo.

It depends on how much clutter you can tolerate and whether you have a Compulsive Disorder to have everything in place. To me the effort to have a place fir everything is simply not worth the time and effort and if its out of date and lost, it gets thrown out.
Now cloudy stuff is a judgement call that you need to make but you can search various states ag sites for food safety standards.-Dick

I agree. I do not have a compulsive disorder but live in "organized" semi disorder. I do not like not finding things though so I like to have some kind of method to my madness about where I put things.

OK LTH'ers- I need an answer to this question.
Yesterday I was making a pork shoulder in the slow cooker. It was on high from 7AM to 1 PM.
At 1PM the cleaning ladies came and unplugged it. ARGH!
At 5 PM I arrived home and found it that way- I temped it, and the meat was about 120-130.
I sliced it into thick slices and put it in a 350 oven for 2 hours, took it out it was 200-210 thruout,
shredded it, and refrigerated.

If it heat it up tonight, IS IT SAFE TO EAT???

THANK YOU ALL

I absolutely would not eat this. FDA states that food should not stay between 40 and 140 for more than 2 hours. If toxins occur in food that has been out longer, heat will not kill the toxins. Also, the toxins have no smell.

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparenc ... 194302.htm

Edit: the problem is that you have no idea how long it was below 140. At 120-130 it probably wasn't for more than 2 hours. I still would not eat it.

Edit again: This is $10-$20 worth of food. The more I think about this, the more likely it seems that it is OK. But, TO ME, likely is not good enough.

lougord99 wrote:I absolutely would not eat this. FDA states that food should not stay between 40 and 140 for more than 2 hours. If toxins occur in food that has been out longer, heat will not kill the toxins. Also, the toxins have no smell.

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparenc ... 194302.htm

Edit: the problem is that you have no idea how long it was below 140. At 120-130 it probably wasn't for more than 2 hours. I still would not eat it.

Edit again: This is $10-$20 worth of food. The more I think about this, the more likely it seems that it is OK. But, TO ME, likely is not good enough.

No way, no how. Even if it were $50 and risk was only 20%, think about the risk.

BR wrote:

lougord99 wrote:I absolutely would not eat this. FDA states that food should not stay between 40 and 140 for more than 2 hours. If toxins occur in food that has been out longer, heat will not kill the toxins. Also, the toxins have no smell.

http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparenc ... 194302.htm

Edit: the problem is that you have no idea how long it was below 140. At 120-130 it probably wasn't for more than 2 hours. I still would not eat it.

Edit again: This is $10-$20 worth of food. The more I think about this, the more likely it seems that it is OK. But, TO ME, likely is not good enough.

No way, no how. Even if it were $50 and risk was only 20%, think about the risk.

Nope. Sorry. I would consider refrigerating it for our dog considering how it was seasoned, but not humans. The risk is not worth it.

How long can a roast ham (spiral sliced, none of that fool packaged glaze) last in the fridge?

It's been both cured and cooked. I'd certainly feel safe at least ten days out. In any case it'll start to smell a bit funky in a special way when it's fixin' to turn. But keep it well wrapped, tightly.

Geo

If you have space it keeps for 6-9 months easily in the freezer.