Mark Bittman's recipe for chicken Adobo says: "Combine the [ingredients] in a covered skillet or saucepan large enough to hold the chicken in one layer". The recipe calls for 3-4 pounds of chicken.  I'm wondering what is the reason that the chicken must fit in one layer. Is it to ensure that the cooking temperature does not vary too much from the bottom of the pot to the top?  I'm also wondering in general, for most recipes that involve stovetop cooking in liquid like braises, stews, chili, arroz con pollo, stroganoff, etc., is there a limit to how deep I should pile it in one pot? when it exceeds a certain depth, should I split it in 2 pots?   Extra info: My biggest cooking pot is 5.5 inches deep, has a 10 inch diameter, and has a fairly thick base. My stovetop has gas burners. 
There are some kinds of mold which are safe to consume (blue cheese is a common example) but in general they are not. While you might often be fine eating a bit, there's no guarantee, so to be safe you should throw out moldy food like your jerky.  See the FDA's advice, for example.  Note that mold is okay on some kinds of cured meats:     Hard salami and dry-cured country hams: Use. Scrub mold off surface. It is normal for these shelf-stable products to have surface mold.   But I'm not sure it's normal for jerky. For those examples it's normal and even common to have mold, but for jerky it's not common, so I wouldn't be confident it's normal. (Indeed, it grew there when you left it somewhere moist, so it's not part of the normal production and storage of jerky.) Additionally, jerky is generally more fibrous and less solid than those things, so there's more potential for mold to grow inside it, where you wouldn't be able to scrub it off.  Your example does look like it's mostly on the surface though, so if you want to take a small chance, you could see if you can really scrub it all off. 