I made what was described as "the best lasagna I've ever eaten" last night. I'm driving home to see my H tonight, and wanted to bring some for dinner tonight. I packed up a big chunk of it in a soft sided cooler, threw in a freezer baggie of ice and a couple of small cool packs, and left for work this morning at 7am.
I set the cooler on the floor under my desk and forgot about it until about 3pm. I opened it up, and the ice was still mostly frozen, but a little melted. The cool packs were cool, but not icy cold at all. The container of lasagna also felt moderately cool, but bordering on room temp. So it sat in a fairly thin cooler with a baggie of ice for 8 hours.
I dropped it in the work freezer, and will take it out at 5pm to put back in the cooler with the baggie of ice and drive 2 hours home. Lasagna still edible at that point, or give it up?
I would eat it. I figure that it was kept pretty cold from 7am till noonish since you put ice in the cooler. Upon discovering it at 3ish it was only room temp for a max of 3 hours.
The fact that the lasagna itself was still cool to the touch makes me very comfortable. I would still probably give it to him first, but if he was not green or moaning in an hour, I'd probably go for it lol.