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LEGGO THAT EGG

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By MARY KEITH

Tribune correspondent

Published: March 29, 2009

I boiled a pan of eggs last night for egg salad. It was late when they were done. I drained off the water and left them in the pan to cool before I refrigerated them, and, of course, forgot them until this morning! Are they safe to use today?

That's a good question to ask right before Easter egg season. Unfortunately, the answer to your question is that they are now very risky eggs. The safe time recommended for cooked eggs at room temperature is only two hours. Surprisingly, raw eggs are safe longer at room temperature than cooked eggs, though the less exposure they have, the better. But once an egg is cooked, the natural bacteria-fighting ability has been destroyed. So any bacteria that can sneak in through a pore in the eggshell will find a haven in there. With lots of warm, dark, protected moist protein, it's a perfect place for bacteria to grow.

I have a can of Seville oranges. There are instructions on the can for how to make orange marmalade, but it just says to pour the hot marmalade into warm jars and put the lids on. Shouldn't it be refrigerated?

If that is all you do - put the hot marmalade in warm jars - then yes, for any length of storage, refrigeration is definitely recommended. But it's easy to process the jars for shelf storage. Boil the jars for 10 minutes first, then fill them with hot marmalade. Put the warmed lids on and boil the filled jars for five minutes in water deep enough to cover the lids by an inch. Now you can store them on the shelf without worrying about spoilage.

Has the peanut problem been resolved yet? Is it safe to buy a jar of peanut butter?

It's pretty safe to say that all the contaminated peanuts and peanut products have been pulled off the shelves by now. None of the major brands of peanut butter in jars in the grocery stores have been connected to the outbreak of illness. So go ahead, buy a jar of peanut butter and enjoy it. If you go to www.fda.gov, right in the middle at the top of the page is the link to a full list of the recalled products.

Why do my old custard recipes all say to scald the milk? Is that absolutely necessary?

Scalding milk was more necessary years ago than it is now. It was partly intended to inactivate enzymes and kill bacteria. That is not necessary now. But the other reason for scalding is to begin unraveling the milk protein. Custards made with scalded milk tend to be slightly firmer. If you don't mind slightly softer custard, skip the scalding. Most people won't notice the difference.

Why does this can of crushed tomatoes say it has added water, concentrated tomatoes and tomato puree? Don't they just crush the tomatoes anymore?

It costs a lot to store and transport watery crushed tomatoes. It is much more economical to crush them, remove a lot of the water, store the concentrated pulp, then add the water back in when they're ready to can. What you have has the same amount of water as plain crushed tomatoes and can be used the same way. But manufacturers have to tell you that they concentrated them first then diluted them before they canned them.

Mary A. Keith, a nutritionist and health agent at Hillsborough County Extension, can be reached at (813) 744-5519 or mkeith@ufl.edu.

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