the refrigerator??
I made one of those "make ahead and leave in the fridge 24hrs" breakfast casseroles but now can't bake it for our crowd of company until 4 days later. I had grand plans to use it this morning then turns out we all have other breakfast commitments in various places. We all won't be here to eat this until Tuesday morning. It is made up of eggs,bread,milk,cream cheese and blueberries. None of the items were near expiration date...mainly worried about the consistency and it still setting up.
Soooooo, is it ok to let it sit in the fridge and "marinate" 4 days longer?
Thanks for any input!!
Thanks ladies....I will bake it this evening. Yummmm!!
Riley J~ Thank you sooooo much for your post. That helped me understand the "chemistry" behind it all.
Again..thank you everyone for taking the time to respond.
Just bake it now and eat it later. Don't let it sit uncooked any longer.
72 hours raw, then you need to cook it and it can stay in the fridge another 72 hours cooked.
Make it for dinner.
I'd never eat anything that long in the fridge. Just me though. Eat it for dinner, no one says we can't have breakfast for dinner in my house.
Yeah... Even though the ingredient may last for weeks individually, once they're mixed together the components start chemical reactions between the ingredients (sugars feeding yeasts, acids cooking proteins, fats emulsifying, fermenting/oxidizing/etc.) which... Even in a perfect environment to halt microbe growth would ruin a thing BUT because each of them has their own inherant microbes AND air/dish/hands are never microbe free...
... You've only got about 1 day.
The reason its "overnight" is you want part of the chemical reactions to be happening. But once they keep going, they get gross. And all the nutrients form an awesome base for fungus, bacteria, & enzymes to stew together creating colonies or mysterious liquid goo from broken down proteins, that the colonies feed off of.
Cook for tonight, or cook tonight, cut, and freeze.
Once frozen, if well sealed, it should last for several weeks.
If the ingredients were not previously frozen you can also easily freeze the dish as is, then bake (a little longer) when it is time.
Good luck.
Microwave it, let it cool, freeze it, then cook on 215 for 45 minutes...DELISH!!!!
