Geek Housekeeping scribbles:

[azurelunatic]

Mythbusters on the 5-second rule. My conclusions from same: "If it's dry, you shouldn't die. If it's wet, don't bet."
Duplicate the Mythbusters' 5-second-rule surface-culture explorations in your own kitchen! (You may not want to eat there again!)

Kitchen science: using ice cubes to cool very hot crock pot stews to a temperature where they'll be safer when refrigerated.
Also, split up very hot things-to-be-chilled into smaller portions, to avoid them remaining at temperatures where Things Like to Grow for very long. Recommended: food handler's card training, much in the same way that most computer-geeks have accumulated enough general machine knowledge to pass an A+ course, even if they have never gone for that.

Cookbooks and recipes are the reusable code of the cooking world. Someone else figured out that this hack works. It will probably work for you, perhaps with a little tweaking. Keep to the standards until you're comfortable customizing it.
The crockpot is a wonderful method of doing a batch job while cooking.

http://cookingforengineers.com/ is a wonderful place for kitchen geekery. Take note of the recipes -- they're very easy to follow if you're used to following graphic diagrams. Flow is left to right and top to bottom, like typical English-language writing.

For the love of gods, under-salt while cooking and bring the shaker, rather than over-salting.

Do not thermally shock your cookware -- if it's hot and needs to be washed, get the sink started running *hot* water, rather than dunking it in COLD.

Comments

[bekijane.livejournal.com]

Also remember (as a qualified food handler) that one of the more common nasties is found in left over cold rice that hasn't been chilled at once. Run cold water through rice that is to be kept and refrigerate at once. Don't keep for more than 24 hours

[azurelunatic]

Hooray for proper storage procedures!

[juuro.livejournal.com]

I never even heard about the "5-second-rule" before well into my adult years and met some USAtians. I did not understand it at all then, and still do not. My opinion on the matter has been exactly as you very beautifully summarise.

[azurelunatic]

A dry item is far less likely to pick up surface contaminants from a brief stay on an unsecured surface than a wet one is. Some items may be washable or trimmable.

My roommate had a rhyming comment about some legacy bagels: "If it grows, it goes."

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

I had an amusing discussion with Eichling today regarding kitchen habits. We determined among other things that she has very different kitchen habits as a result of medical training, and I have very different kitchen habits as a result of growing up in a dirty kitchen (In my head, the counters are always unclean. It is totally incomprehensible to me that people will chop things on counters, put spoons on counters and then back in the food, or set food on counters and then eat it.)

[azurelunatic]

Dirty kitchens are for Antarctica!

Myself, I was trained out of chopping on counters because the counter surface was not good for the knives.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

And vice versa. Though these days they like to make counters out of granite or marble so you can use any part of it as a cutting board.

But I'm weirded out still because you clean counters with chemically things!

[azurelunatic]

Often enough it is "Ooo, that was a spot." *wipe wipe*

Just sponge and dish soap mostly. The chemical spray stuffs are mostly for floor, for me. Sis got kinda crazy with the cleaning sometimes.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Kitchen science: using ice cubes to cool very hot crock pot stews to a temperature where they'll be safer when refrigerated.
Also, split up very hot things-to-be-chilled into smaller portions, to avoid them remaining at temperatures where Things Like to Grow for very long.

This is generally unnecessary for home kitchen sized batches, unless one habitually does more than about 4 gallon batches, or habitually practices otherwise poor food safety. Since a typical crock pot is 2-3 quarts, I'd worry more about the thermal shock than the bacterial growth. If one is deeply concerned about bacterial growth in a crock pot item, simply transfer it to smaller containers to take advantage of the square/cube law. Cutting down on the total thermal energy in the container is a side benefit.

Keep in mind that if one is doing large batches, you cannot do it safely without proper food safety in the first place. This produces minimal initial contamination. Then once the batch is complete and has been chilled for storage, servings are brought to safe temperatures (~180-212F) before serving. It's often a bad plan to reheat more at one time than you plan on eating.

[azurelunatic]

And smaller portions are much better for freezing! (I should really see what there is in the freezer that shouldn't be there, because I know there should be a lot more room in there.)

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Yep, I take advantage of that for soup stock and things like that (tho I also cheat and reduce the hell out of stock to save even more space). Freezer food is always near instant food, so it gets used up pretty quickly. If we're tired and hungry (which happens a lot) we grab something out of the freezer and make Instant Food. Just it's healthier because it's homemade stuff instead of nasty commercially processed crap.

[azurelunatic]

*giggle* So you compress the stock before archiving it?

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Yep! Compression is great!

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

I've always used your variant of the 5-second rule--even before I'd ever heard of the "5 second rule" itself. It just seemed obvious that a cookie (f'rinstance) landing on a dry countertop should be okay after a quick brushing-off, but if any part of the collision was wet and/or sticky, the food item was probably irrevocably contaminated.

And I LUUURVE your observation about recipes being "reusable code"!! I *must* remember that! Ditto crock-pots as "batch jobs". *g*

[azurelunatic]

Things like apple slices can be washed/trimmed, happily.