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 :)

Trout recipes

Ebon has been doing quite a bit of fishing this year. He catches a fair amount of trout, so we have been experimenting with different ways to prepare it.
I've made a pan-fried Honey Pecan Trout .

Olive oil roasted tomatoes and fennel with white beans

I had fennel to use up and decided on roasting it with tomatoes to make this dish. I thought it was good, but the rest of my family didn't agree.

Peanut Sauce 2?

Martha Stewart's peanut sauce was ok, but probably could use some spice that we didn't add because of Leela.

Ethiopian Lentil stew with Chard

I made it on the stovetop, because I have yet to give into the Instant Pot purchase yet.  Though, it sounds like it could save me some time... I made this Ethiopian Lentil stew that was going around my  dinner facebook group. I thought it turned out ok, not sure if I would make it again.

Salsa Verde

I got tomatillos in the CSA share a couple weeks ago, so I thought I would try to make some salsa verde. There are lots of recipes online, but I went with Cookie & Kate's Salsa Verde.
I followed it pretty much to the letter, I may have omitted the jalepenos, but I can't remember now.
We had it with some quesadillas and I thought it was very good. Ebon didn't like it, but Leela readily dipped her chips in it.
I had some leftover, so I froze it. I think I'll try to make some Enchilada Verde sometime in the near future. Or maybe I'll make some breakfast burritos and put it on. The possibilities are many!

Eggplant and Tomato Pie

I am still working through our CSA veggies. I decided to make the New York Times Eggplant and Tomato Pie. It worked out pretty well because I had frozen pie dough and marinara, in addition to the CSA eggplant and plethora of tomatoes from the garden.
It went together easily enough. I roasted the eggplant ahead of time, while I was working from home. Then at dinner time, I put everything together and baked it all up.


I thought it looked pretty and tasted good, but it wasn't as well received by the rest of the family. Though Leela said she liked the eggplant and took a few bites of it, which I was pleasantly surprised by. In the end, I'm not sure if the pie dough was the right choice. I also had frozen pizza dough, so that or the dough from the recipe may have been a better choice.