Does not look good. You should study up on the 'food safety danger zone'.

Google that and you will soon learn why your method is unsafe. With the lid on a pot and the heat off, your food will soon sit for a long time at an unsafe temperature.

Take the lid off and get your soup cold as fast as possible for storage...put in smaller containers or smaller pots and chill in an ice bath, a snow bank on the deck in winter, etc. Easiest in smaller containers in your sink with some water and ice. Then into the fridge for meals used in 2-3 days or into the freezer after a chill in the fridge.

A hot pot put in your fridge will bring your fridge temp up way too warm and compromise your fridge contents. And your fridge will struggle to bring that temp back down to its safe cool zone.

I would not eat that.

My chicken gelatin doesn't foam or bubble. I wouldn't eat or serve that myself no matter what the pot contents looked like underneath. That's too extended of a time to leave food at room temp. Sorry, I know you don't want to hear that but your food has been in the temperature 'danger zone' too long.

Nah, that's ok, figured I'd ask, in case someone had seen something similar.

I agree with everyone about food safety. That said it looks like the fat layer along with all the stuff that floats up (and can be skimmed off) to the top of soup.

Doesn't look good to me. I would never leave any food out on the stove overnight.

Forgot to mention that any meat should NEVER be left out overnight - & this had chicken in it, right?

grainlady - you are supposed to rinse quinoa?!

Heh, no I just dumped it, and the couscous, and the lentils into the pot, and let em cook. It was 'use up what's left in the cupboards chicken soup', so I just dumped, let it boil for a few hours, then put the lid on and walked away.

My hubby suggested perhaps one pot got foamy and the other didn't was because I tipped additional bone broth in from the 3rd, and the top may have had more gelatin than the bottom of that 3rd pot.

I did skim off the top stuff when I got home, boil it again, and put it into containers and into the fridge last night, so perhaps I'll watch it to see if it does anything further funky. If I eat a bowl tonight and it doesn't give me stomach troubles I may just eat the rest of the pot. Fermenting stuff is supposed to be good for you, isn't it?! (slightly tongue in cheek, as I googled Nattō today...)

Quinoa is very bitter and can have a somewhat "soapy" taste if it isn't rinsed well. The stuff I buy at Costco says that it's rinsed on the package, but I rinse it anyway. :-)

Well, I guess I'll have to try rinsing it next time.
Ate a bowl from the reboiled+refrigerated pot, and 2 hours later i feel fine, so i guess we'll see how i do later tonight!

Interesting. I think I just won't buy quinoa again if it requires that much effort.

As for the soup, I put it into smaller containers so it would cooler faster, and shared it between my fridge, mini fridge, and freezer.

I admit I occasionally push the limit of food safety once in a while (for myself, wouldn't do it for guests) as long as the food doesn't smell bad.

But even then - some cultures hang chickens from trees until they smell 'ripe' and then cook them, so with enough heat + spices I like to think our bodies can adjust to many things. Just shouldn't overdo it all at once.

Interesting. I think I just won't buy quinoa again if it requires that much effort.

Really???? Just rinsing quinoa a few times is enough to turn you off from eating it? Do you rinse basmati rice? That's another grain that must be rinsed.

This comment really took me by surprise, but then I'm of the camp that will never buy those bags of pre-formed carrots.....the ones they try to tell you that are "baby" carrots but they aren't. I also never buy bags of pre-cut carrots, peppers, onions etc. I also don't buy a box of breadcrumbs.......preferring to use my stale bread, hotdog buns etc and make my own crumbs. I like to know what I'm eating (as much as I can) and my money is far more precious to me to pay someone to cut the veggies for me.

grainlady - I've had food poisoning from bad Chinese Chicken that had me blacked out convulsing on the floor...so I do know what roulette I'm playing. ;) As I said though - personal consumption only.

I do think people need to start living a little dirtier and/or consuming things a little outside their comfort range - the studies in fecal transplants and corollaries between allergies and the lack of 'worms' in people's digestive system is really starting to suggest we are being overly cautious (except again, those with severe health disorders)

Jasdip - I only bought quinoa on a whim since everyone was raving about it. I dont find it special enough to eat regularly, so buying and/or rinsing it is not worth the bother. I'm not high-brow enough to buy basmati rice (why do you rinse that? same reason?), though I do throw out rice after 2 days as that DOES breed the really bad bacteria.

Leftover rice is so handy to have in the freezer. Put in hot water for a few minutes and drained, or used for a stir-fry, or used for rice pudding. It's so versatile. It's a shame to throw it out when you don't have to.

I rinse quinoa all the time, takes about a minute. I just put it in a sieve, swish it around for a while, when the water runs clear I give it a few shakes and then dump it in the pan. I also toast it like buckwheat/kasha. I'm still not a huge quinoa fan, but the red kind I find tolerable, when mixed with highly seasoned stuff.

We had quinoa for dinner tonite. I put some red cranberries, slivered almonds and some lemon juice in it.

Quinoa is a great food for vegetarians because it is a very high quality plant protein - maybe the best plant protein. That being said, I don't use it nearly enough simply because I forget about it, and it's rather expensive. I really should use it, and other grains more often.

Lookinto..., I agree with you on stuff being too sterile. I did have food poisoning once, though, from a commercial fake chicken product. I think what happened was what Grainlady was talking about. I did some grocery shopping, when I picked up the frozen fake chicken product, then went somewhere else for a short while, maybe 15 minutes, then went home, all the time with the groceries in the trunk of my car. I then, of course, put the groceries up when I got home. I ate some of the fake chicken a few weeks later, and felt a bit nauseous, but didn't think anything of it. Several days later, I ate some again, and by the end of the evening, I was very sick. I had also come down with the flu at the same time, so it really wasn't fun at all. I blame myself for the food poisoning, but I also don't think I could eat that product again. Too bad of an association with it.

I'm glad your soup turned out okay.

Sally

grainlady_ks - my friends who are lab techs warned me that even stored properly in a fridge, that rice grows a special type of bacteria that can make you extremely ill (they see it a fair bit in hospitalized patients). I've never tried freezing rice, but if I have space I will try that next time.

Wow, apparently I've been dodging a bullet for years with the rice . . . Live and learn.

That's bizarre, with all of the Chinese Buffets, you would think a lot of people would be getting sick.

The bacterium survives cooking, but do the spores/bacteria survive
friction? It seems to me that all the handling, washing, polishing,
etc., that most commercial rice goes through would get rid of most of
it, meaning it could be an issue but not necessarily common. I can't
help thinking of anthrax, which is so hard to kill but not common to catch.

Also, don't boil soup when you have all the ingredients in it. Simmer it gently to help avoid scum on top of the pot. If you want to reduce the broth to intensify its flavor, you can strain it and then boil it to reduce it. Then add the veggies, meat and grains or pasta.