The Instant Pot

Last Christmas my friend Betsy got a new kitchen work horse: the Instant Pot.  She told me how great it was and I was intrigued, but I really had no need for another kitchen appliance.  Then, after doing a deep clean on my crock-pot (and apparently getting water behind the electronic panel), it died on Easter Sunday with the ham already in it!  I was less than pleased.  Luckily I have the kind of Crockpot that has a removable stoneware crock and I was able to save Easter dinner in the oven.

Now I had my chance!  I had a genuine reason to shop for a new kitchen gadget and the Instant Pot was at the top of my list.  It wasn't cheap, but it was more than a slow cooker, it was a pressure cooker, rice cooker and yogurt maker.  Normally I say appliances that try to do many things can only do them poorly, but so far my Instant Pot 7-in-1 has yet to disappoint.  I have made many recipes with this appliance and I even removed my food processor from the counter top to make room for this pot to stay out all the time.

Here are just a few things I like about the Instant Pot.  It:

• allows me to make homemade yogurt and coconut yogurt cheaply and with minimal effort
• shortens cooking time for most dinner entrees by 50% or more
• as a nice display with self-explanatory buttons
• has wonderful side slots that hold the lid for you while you saute or for serving
• has an easy to clean, dishwasher safe stainless steel pot
• makes the perfect brown rice in less than 45 minutes
• turns two-pot slow cooker meals into 1-pot meals with the built-in saute feature 
• comes with a recipe book that helps to introduce you to pressure cooking as well as yogurt making
• cooks greens in a way that I actually like them! 

Drawbacks are few.  One of the drawbacks is that you have to be careful and not add any ingredients that might scorch before you use the pressure cooker.  Many recipes add flour to the pot before cooking, but the flour will scorch and prevent the cooker from functioning properly.  If this happens you will get a "Ovht" error and the pot will shut off.  Once, I had to remove an entire (still raw) chicken from the pot and clean the liner before returning the chicken and the pot to the cooker.  Now that I know I won't make that mistake again, and hopefully by reading this review you won't make it either!

Betsy has invited me to post recipe reviews for this pressure cooker over on her fulltummies page, so in the next few weeks or so you can look for full recipes there.  

Happy cooking!

Cooking for Friends

I love cooking for friends, but I'm sure if you are anything like me more and more of your friends are on restrictive diets.  This week for small group we had the theme of "Pies" for dinner.  After naming the theme I immediately realized that many of our members are gluten free and most pies have gluten in them.  We also have several members that are dairy and egg free.  Here is my solution:

Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free Shepherd's Pie

To start I used Alton Brown's recipe and just applied some minor tweaks:

Ingredients
For the potatoes:
 2 pounds yukon gold potatoes
1 1/2 -2 cups chicken broth

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil (to taste)
1/2 tbl. The Melting Pot's garlic and wine seasoning (to taste)

For the meat filling:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced 

2 pounds ground beef

1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoons corn starch
2 teaspoons tomato paste (I had some, but I didn't have the original container so I omitted this ingredient)
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
1-2 cups frozen mixed vegetables 

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch dice. Place in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Set over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, uncover, decrease the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until tender and easily crushed with tongs, approximately 10 to 15 minutes.  Drain the potatoes in a colander and then return to the saucepan. Mash the potatoes and then add the chicken stock, olive oil, MP seasoning, salt and pepper and continue to mash until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the filling. Place the oil into a 12-inch saute pan and set over medium high heat. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion and saute just until they begin to take on color, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to combine. Add the ground beef, salt and pepper and cook until browned and cooked through, approximately 3 minutes. Make a slurry of the corn starch and 1/4 cup chicken stock.  Add slurry the tomato paste, chicken broth, Worcestershire, thyme, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer slowly 10 to 12 minutes or until the sauce is thickened slightly.

Add the frozen vegetables to the beef mixture and spread evenly into an 13 by 9-inch glass baking dish. Top with the mashed potatoes, starting around the edges to create a seal to prevent the mixture from bubbling up and smooth with a rubber spatula. Cover with aluminum foil and place on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 25 minutes or just until warm and bubbly.  Because these potatoes do not have milk or butter in them do not expect them to brown! Remove to a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before serving. 

I hope you enjoy this recipe!  Like any other recipe be sure to check all of your ingredients before beginning for allergens!