You can avoid foodborne-illness outbreaks in your operation if you prepare food safely. Doing this includes following general practices for thawing and prepping food; cooking food thoroughly; and cooling and reheating food correctly. Now, take what you have learned in this chapter and apply it to the following case study.

Amanda had a busy day ahead of her at the company cafeteria. Looking in the freezer, she realized that she had forgotten to thaw the chicken breasts she had planned to serve for lunch. Moving quickly, she placed the frozen chickens in a prep sink and turned on the hot water. While waiting for the chicken to thaw, she grabbed a pan of leftover clam chowder from the cooler and placed it in the steam table to heat up.

When the lunch hour ended at 1:30 PM, Amanda had a lot of cooked chicken breasts leftover. “No problem,” Amanda thought. “We can use the leftover chicken to make chicken salad.” Amanda left the still-hot chicken breasts in a pan on the prep table while she started putting other food away and cleaning up.

At 9:45 PM, when everything else was clean, Amanda put her hand over the pan of chicken breasts and decided they were cool enough to be put away. She covered the pan with plastic wrap and put it in the cooler.

What did Amanda do wrong? (Hint: 3 mistakes)