Ingredients (7/10): They had a bunch of options for you to choose for the ingredients you want to put in your hot pot, I was actually really surprised to see the number of options they had. The only thing I wasn't super pleased about was the portion of meat, it wasn't the cheapest and they brought out 5 slices of frozen beef and it just wasn't.
College students everywhere struggle to find ways to save money — all while relishing a delicious meal. The cafeteria is a go-to, but sometimes you want a home-cooked meal right in your dorm room. The hot pot is a game-changer.
These water-heating appliances can do so much more than make tea and Cup Noodles. Not only can you cook, you can also whip up a tasty. We have these and other great recipes perfect for the days when you don’t feel like trekking to the dining hall.Being able to multi-task is the joy of using your hot pot. While making a new easy-to-create dish, you can focus on homework without the risk of overcooking your meal.Another joy of your new favorite dorm room toy is that you won’t overheat your living space when making for you weekly kickback with friends during football season.
While most dorms have a limited electricity capacity, the hot pot will pass the wattage requirements each time.Head to the market, stock up on your favorite, and serve up some seasonal delights with friends all year long.Easy Hot Pot Spaghetti.
Two problems:.Hot or warm food will briefly warm up the air and therefore to some degree the food already in fridge, especially items immediately near it. Cycling temperatures does not help fresh food quality or life. Modern fan forced fridges may suffer this problem less.It is very power inefficient to do this. Just let it cool on the bench until it reaches a cooler temperature and then place it in the refrigerator. Use any of the well-documented and appropriate techniques to cool food quickly and safely if it is going to longer than 2 hours to cool. This is a myth left over from the days of iceboxes.
Go to any official food safety resource online (including USDA, FDA, etc.), and you will find they are all in agreement: it's perfectly safe to put hot food in your refrigerator. In fact, unless you are using some more direct cooling method (like putting your food in an ice bath), waiting to refrigerate your food is often a health hazard.See, for example, consumer recommendations at the ('Despite what some people believe, putting hot food in the refrigerator doesn't harm the appliance.' ), ('A lot of people think it will harm their refrigerator to put hot food inside-it's not true. It won't harm your refrigerator and it will keep your food-and you-safe.' ), ('Hot food can be placed directly in the refrigerator or it can be rapidly chilled in an ice or cold water bath before refrigerating.'
) Similar advice can be found at other food safety sources: (Under 'Food Safety Myths': 'FACT: Hot food can be placed in the refrigerator.' ), from the (Again, under a list of 'myths': 'Fact: Hot foods can be placed directly in the refrigerator.' ), from the ('Myth #10 - 'I can't put hot food into the refrigerator.
The food will spoil if I do.' -The food will spoil if it is not quickly cooled! The leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States is improper cooling, such as leaving cooked foods at room temperature.'
), the (again, from a 'myths' list: 'Hot food can be placed directly in the refrigerator if you divide large quantities into small, shallow containers.' ), etc., etc., etc. @Joe - Also, if you read my answer, I specifically say that I do not advocate the practice of putting large pots of hot food in the fridge. I'm saying that: (1) it won't harm the appliance, (2) it won't harm the rest of the food in the fridge, and (3) even if you do it, it's safer than the alternative that most folklore says you should do, which is to leave it out on the counter to cool. I'm also noting that if you do break down the food properly into smaller containers, it's safer to put it in the fridge with proper air circulation, rather than leaving it out as some people think.–Feb 10 '13 at 5:38. One thing still hasn't been mentioned here, and I think it's one of the most important points:If you need to cool a very large quantity of a very hot food - for example, a fresh pot of stock - then putting it straight into the refrigerator is akin to leaving the refrigerator door open for an extended period of time.
It will cause the motor to run constantly and can actually burn it out.Even if it doesn't burn it out, it puts a lot of strain on the mechanical parts and will almost certainly shorten the refrigerator's life span.This is, or should, be an equal concern to food safety. For smaller food items, it's really a non-issue on both fronts. @TFD: I don't mean to be rude, but I am asking for facts, not vague references and analogies. Different refrigerators have different compressors, with Embraco being no more than 20% of the market share; a hard drive is not equivalent to a refrigerator; and I know for a fact that none of the refrigerators that I or my family or friends have ever owned actually runs continuously, which you would expect if it is actually known to 'last longer' that way. Furthermore, many people will have older appliances and I've seen at least a few refrigerator manuals warning not to run continuously.–Nov 8 '10 at 14:54. Earlier in life, I had the personal experience of cooking up a large batch (2 catering pans) of chicken and pasta in a cream sauce for a party.
Once it was done, I put it into the basement fridge to cool overnight and keep until the party. Turns out that the fridge took so long to cool it down that the cream sauce went bad by the late morning. Not just 'a little off' but completely spoiled so that it needed to be thrown out and our basement smelled horribly for a week.As said in earlier comments, a large quantity of hot food in a fridge can take hours to cool down and can certainly spoil as quickly as overnight. There just isn’t enough cool air circulating around a large batch of food to effectively cool it all the way through in a reasonable time.In my particular case, and for any large batch of stir-able food, the right way to cool the dish would be to stir it with an ice paddle. In a pro kitchen, an ice paddle is a huge water filled stirrer that you keep frozen.
When you have a large volume of hot food that needs to be cooled, you stir it with the ice paddle until the temperature comes down enough that it is safe to put the food in the fridge. All the melted water stays contained inside the paddle so the food cools down without being watered down.I don’t have a real ice paddle, so when I need to cool food that can be stirred I substitute a “cooler insert” for the ice paddle. Well, cooler insert probably isn’t the real word for the thing, so let me describe it. It’s a blue hard plastic container about the size and shape of a book and filled with water.
The intended use it to put them in a picnic cooler to keep your food cool without getting it wet. You keep it in the freezer so it’s frozen solid and ready to use as an ice pack or, in my case, a food cooling stirrer.In a pinch, if you need to cool a tray of food or large pot of soup, you can seal up ice in a plastic bag. Carefully put the bag in your food and stir it frequently to distribute the heat through the dish.
If you don’t stir, the food away from the ice won’t cool. The ice should melt inside the bag and the food should cool nicely. Once your food is cool enough, you can pluck out the bag. Something I've found helpful when trying to cool off large quantities of soups or stews before refrigerating or freezing: pour into relatively large, flat containers, like roasting pans, to increase the surface area. Yes, it means more pans to wash, but it can reduce the cool-down time considerably. If I'm going to be freezing the recipe I'll put the hot food into separate containers right away, as the smaller containers will also cool down more quickly than one big vat would.I've used ice baths in the past as well, but I like the suggestions to drop bagged or other containerized ice into the food directly to help cool it down; I'll vote that up, and will definitely try it in future!