Lemon blueberry muffins

Someone in my Facebook dinner group suggested a challenge to work through things in your freezer and pantry. I didn't comment or commit, but it has inspired me to try to plan some dinners around what we have. This summer when Ebon was making lots of lemonade, I tried to save most of the zest. It has been in the freezer since then waiting for me to make something with it. Lemon poppyseed muffins are my favorite but Leela likes blueberry muffins, so I tried to compromise by making Lemon Blueberry Muffins .
Of course I changed things around, I used some greek yogurt instead of the milk which made it quite a bit thicker, so I thinned it out with more milk.
I liked the way they turned out, not too sweet, but plenty of lemon flavor. Leela didn't like them though. More for me!

Gingerbread cookies

I made these cookies before Christmas. They were a lot of fun to make with Leela, though required a bit of patience on the preschooler's part while I rolled out the dough. They tasted pretty good too!

Instant pot recipes

During the Christmas season, I got an instant pot. It is a 7 features in 1 cooking pot. So far, I've used it quite often, at least once a week, rather than trying to catch up with single posts, I'm going to list everything I've made so far here!

Minestrone was pretty good, but the pasta was a little soft.

Coconut curry-I roughly followed the linked recipe, but added a few more spices (whole cumin, some fenugreek, in addition to what was listed) and used sauté at the beginning with the aromatics and spices. I threw in potato instead of cauliflower and included red pepper and some mushrooms that needed to be used up.

Macaroni and cheese- turned out great! I used penne I had on hand and was worried about it getting too soft, but the 4 minutes was just right. I used about 1/2 cup of whole milk.

Broccoli and cheddar soup- I thought this was very tasty and was super quick! I sprinkled some veggie bacon and scallions on top of mine. Leela liked the bacon, but not the onions.

Tomato soup- fast and easy!

Steel cut oats - 1c steel cut oats, 3 c water, 1/4 c raisins, 1 cinnamon stick, salt. All placed in pot and stirred a bit. Put lid on, press 'manual', set time for 13 min on high pressure. It beeps and then says 'on' for a while, until it comes up to pressure. Once it is done, Do a quick release of the pressure. Once steam is gone, I open the lid and stir the oats. Put the lid back on and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Then it's done! You can also add a bit more vanilla extract, banana and maple syrup and voila - tasty :)