Sorry to keep the off-topic going, but I’m having a pre-cooked sealed pack of rice tonight and thought about how it keeps for months.The packs I just got don’t have a Best By date, but a couple I had for about six months dried out and turned yellow, so I generally use them within a couple of months.
The ingredients are water, rice and glucono delta lactone, an acidic natural power that’s also used in tofu and bread, among other foods.
In the article I linked to above, acidity hampers the growth of the bacteria.
There’s also prepacked frozen rice. This Birdseye rice lists only water and rice as ingredients.
I imagine the packaging the air-tight, and the rice was hot enough to kill the spores when it was sealed. Heating to 240F or whatever it takes is not a big deal for a commercial food processing plant.
Bacillus cereus is commonly found in soil and sometimes in plant foods that are grown close to the ground, such as rice, legumes, cereals, spices, etc.
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Ms Moir says this type of food poisoning is less frequent now than it was in the 1970s, when fried rice was a common culprit.
Ms Moir says this type of food poisoning is less frequent now than it was in the 1970s, when fried rice was a common culprit.
“Restaurants would cook steamed rice one day, then leave the rice out overnight to cook as fried rice the next day,” she explains.
"So it had been sitting around for a day and the Bacillus spores had germinated, grown, and produced the toxins.
"When the fried rice was cooked, the toxin wasn’t destroyed; then the customer consumed the rice and was sick, so there were plenty of outbreaks.
“With the health authorities identifying the cause and educating the restaurateurs, the incidence of this type of food poisoning quickly decreased.”
The best way to avoid food poisoning from Bacillus cereus and other, often nastier, bacteria is to always cook and store food safely.
A bone-in skin-on chicken boobie, salted and buttered and then roasted on some root veg (onions, baby potatoes, some carrot, and garlic cloves) until the skin is crispy and the veggies are braising in chicken-y goodness.
Easy to pare down to one single serving, and takes a while to bake but it’s all hands-off time while you do other things.
Saute some onions, bell pepper, and cherry tomato in olive oil, add a whisked egg or two and scramble. Top with grated cheese at the end of cooking. Fold into a burrito. Comforting, delicious, easy, and not terrible on the nutrition front.
My other favorite is to forgo cooking entirely and eat crackers with cheese and hummus. Very satisfying, especially with a glass of wine.
ETA: That dead horse looks to me like it needs another flog: My leftover rice is good in the fridge for a week or so (my personal rule is not to go past 8 days on any leftovers). But I never leave food out for long. I can’t imagine letting rice or anything else sit out for four hours before putting it away (except maybe at a party). Anyway, I, along with millions of Indonesians who eat leftover rice constantly, put food-poisoning-from-leftover-rice extremely low on the list of things to worry about.
My grandmother heated leftover sweet potatoes that way.
I’ve bought sweet potato patties at Kroger. They’re in the meat section. Precooked and pressed out in patties on white trays. (similar to the ones used for meat)
But it’s cheaper & just as easy to use leftover baked taters.
Now, probably people on this board are not familiar with the cheese.
It looks like Greek cheese, but it is a type of cheese that is widespread in the Balkans.
This dish is simple and tasty. It makes you feel full but it doesn’t get you fat if you use low fat cheese and sour cream.
I like a savory galette. I use a premade Pilsbury pie shells, fill it with any ingredients you like: ham, cheese, broccoli and onions; or kale, feta, sausage, and onion; crimp the sides and brush the crust with an egg wash, bake at 400f for about 30 min.
