Quirky cooking tip I want to share



My strange cooking tip for the day.  :-)  A lot of us go to great lengths in the kitchen to carefully handle raw meat.  We are careful to avoid cross contamination.  We are diligent to wash up after handling the raw meat.  We clean the sink and counter with vengeance.  However, many of us do something pretty unsanitary without thinking about it. 

 
When cooking you break up raw meat with some sort of utensil.  You start off using that same utensil with the raw meat obviously, but how do you finish?

Your  utensil got the raw meat(and potential bacteria) all over it.  The meat may cook up to the proper doneness, but  the utensil touching it did not.  Often we might even serve the finished product with that bacteria covered utensil?   Not so yummy when you think about it.   I didn't used to think about it either.  Then one day a few years ago the light bulb clicked on.

That utensil usually isn't subjected to the same heat level that the meat in the pan is.  Thus, it is going to have bacteria on it still, especially on it's upper layers that didn't get down in the hot pan well.   Too much potential for food bourne sickness in my mind.

Here is what I do for those interested.  I either make sure the entire surface of the utensil gets fully hot enough that I can rest easy.  However, more often, I just grab a fresh one to finish things off.  If I don't have another, I make it point to wash in hot soapy water quickly as I have a second.

When it comes to meat, I am a "well done" girl for the most part.  I know, some of ya'll think that is nuts and ruins the meat.  Not me!  LOL   I can't hack the thought of uncooked meat or it being remotely underdone and potentially risky.  Thus, even my utensil I am careful about as stated above.

It may sound like it, but I am actually not a germophobe.  I believe some germs are important for building immunity generally.  I have lines I won't cross though.  Raw meat is one of those lines.

Just me sharing my weird ways and quirks of the kitchen.  I'd love to hear yours in the comments.  Perhaps you all have tips I can glean from too now that you probably laughed at mine.


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