five faves

I got the ever popular instant pot for Christmas and have been pressure cooking all sorts of things ever since. It is an electric pressure cooker / multifunction cooker that has gone viral, designed by a Canadian company and it has developed a cult following.

It’s been fun to play with. I’ve used it far more than my stove top pressure cooker. Partly it was the novelty, but it’s also really convenient to have a timer built in to turn off at the set time and the depressurizing happens with no drama. It works really well and it has been in nearly daily use since coming out of the box. I even took it along on a overnight ski trip and cooked dinner and breakfast in our room. ( I reheated a beef stew for dinner and for breakfast, we had hard boiled eggs with bacon and pan fried potato.)

It’s not exactly difficult to find Instant pot recipes, but here are some websites and recipes that got me started and inspiration for future dinners (more than five faves)

  • A starter guide by 101cookbooks.com
  • Hip Pressure Cooking
    • hard boiled eggs – the first thing we made
    • grains and beans: oatmeal, brown rice that my family will actually eat, quinoa
    • spaghetti squash which I tossed with a miso-sesame dressing (from smitten kitchen)
    • beef stew
    • pot in pot method of cooking rice in a separate bowl over curried lentils in coconut milk
    • whole chicken – I made a soy chicken stew, first cooking a chicken with a garlic, ginger and quarter cup of each soy sauce and brown sugar (skipping the browning step) and then deboning the chicken while I cooked carrots, potatoes and onions in the broth that had formed for a minute or two depending on size of vegetable chunks. We had this with rice.
    • risotto – I used a recipe from a cookbook at home – very similar to this one.
  • Simply Recipes
  • Ministry of Curry– I haven’t made anything yet, but I know I will soon
  • Two SleeversKimchi Beef Stew, as well as lots of Indian recipes and many different cuisines featured.
  • Nom Nom PaleoCarnitas
  • Pressure Cooking Today –  Sloppy Lasagna with some short cuts and changes. (I skipped the separate 18 minute sauce cooking step and cooked all ingredients including noodles for 5 minutes at high pressure then transferred whole lot to a lasagna pan, layering in some ricotta cheese (optional) and topping with either bechamel sauce or shredded cheese. I baked it long enough to brown the top, around 15 minutes.
  • Cheesy grits
  • Ribs – I’ve made these in the past, but not yet with the instant pot
  • Butternut Squash soup with coconut milk and red Thai curry paste
  • Beets – I always have good intentions about cooking beets, but often they get forgotten in my fridge, which reminds me, I have a bag of beets, needing to be cooked. I like them with goat cheese and a simple dressing or made into fudgy chocolate cupcakes.

There was a small hole in the box that the instant pot came in and that was enough inspiration for Leo’s first DIY project. The best thing to do with the instant pot box…

Enlarging the hole one bite at a time…
Big enough for paws.
Not yet big enough for his head in this photo, but it is now.
The cardboard insert makes the perfect screen from which to attack passersby.

This is the best cat toy!

June Written by:

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