The run of warmer weather continues. 55 degrees and back on the bike again!

Snow will be here Friday, though. Yuck.

I found an article featuring IP recipes with 5 ingredients or less and bookmarked a few. This one is for spaghetti and meatballs. It takes pretty much as long from start to finish as stovetop, but there is only one pot and you don’t have to watch or drain the pasta.

4 ingredients (unpictured olive oil)

The recipe calls for 1 pound of frozen meatballs, but the veggie ones are 12 oz bags. Good enough!

• One 1-pound bag of frozen meatballs (homemade or not)
• 8 oz of spaghetti, broken in half
• One 24 ounce jar of pasta sauce
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 2 cups of water (the recipe called for 3, but after reading all the comments, it sounds like 2 gave better results.)

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Put the meatballs in the bottom of the IP and then the spaghetti.  Drizzle the pasta with the olive oil.

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Next add the sauce and the water, and push everything down so the noodles are covered as much as possible.

Honestly, I don’t know why you couldn’t put the meatballs on top, which would keep the pasta down. Maybe next time.

Set the IP to manual, high pressure and 10 minutes – yes, I know this says low pressure LOL.

When I think about it, I will heat up any liquid that goes into the IP to help speed along the pressurizing time. I didn’t do that today and it took about 12 minutes for the pot to come to pressure and then the 10 minute cook time.

After the cooking is done, use the quick release and give everything a stir. At first it seemed a little liquidy, but with stirring ended up like this:

I was pretty happy with that! This was a nice al dente pasta.

While not a time saver, it was great to just dump all this in the pot and turn it on. No pasta draining or sauce heating or meatball cooking. Only one pot to clean, which can go in the dishwasher – woo hoo!! Not to mention leftovers for another meal.

Still happy with the Instant Pot!

I pulled out the pressure cooker for the first time in a long time. John actually uses it more than I do, mostly for sweet potatoes and pumpkin.  Anyway, I have been craving beef stew for quite a while now and finally got around to doing this. I was going to use the slow cooker, but that takes all day for beef stew, and I figured I would do something different.

Anyhoo, this recipe comes from the book I got from the library that I mentioned last week Cook it Slow, Cook it Fast from Mr. Food Test Kitchen. This book has a lot of yummy sounding recipes in it, too. This is the Quick as a Wink Beef stew.  It’s not actually quick as a wink, but for stew it’s pretty fast LOL.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4  tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 to 1.5 pounds of stew beef, cut into 1 inch cubes (it calls for 2 pounds, but I got this size package)
• 1 tablespoon oil – I used coconut
• 1/4 cup of chopped onion
• 2 pounds of potatoes cut into large cubes
• 2 to 3 carrots cut into chunks
• 1.5 cups of broth
• A 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes with juice
• 1/2 teaspoon of browing agent

I cheated a little and used frozen carrots:

and onions for that matter…

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and pepper. Add the meat and toss to coat. In the pressure cooker, add the oil and brown the meat for 5 minutes or so. I like to do this in a couple batches. If you have too much meat in the pan, you end up steaming the meat because of the liquid. 

Then add in all the rest of the ingredients except for the browning agent.

Cover and bring to pressure. It takes a few minutes to come up to pressure, but the indicator will pop up like this:

Or whatever indicator the pot has. Now turn the heat down to medium low and maintain pressure for 8 minutes. If the button falls down, the heat is too low and you have to bring it back up to pressure. The nice thing about current pressure cookers is that they are safe. No more blowing lids and peeling your dinner off the ceiling. They have a pressure release valve that will automatically release pressure if it gets too high. I have seen that in action, so I know it works.

Anyway, after 8 minutes, do a natural release, which is removing the pressure cooker from the heat and letting the pressure come down on its own. It took about 10 minutes or so for me. The little button will fall back down.  

(FYI – a quick release is where you turn the knob to the steam vent setting and it will release the steam all at once. It’s pretty loud when it does that, but it only takes about 30 seconds.) Then carefully open the lid.  Now for the browning agent. 

This is a suprisingly flavorful add in, plus it darkens the color. You don’t need much, just 1/2 a teaspoon.

Yum, right? Then serve!

The nice thing about the pressure cooker is that it makes the meat really, really tender, but not mushy. I love the slow cooker, but sometimes the pressure cooker seems a little more fresh tasting, if that makes sense. Because of the shorter cooking time.

Since John is a vegetarian, obviously he will not be eating any of this, so I am set for a fair number of meals LOL. Unless anyone wants to come over and have some!

What do you cook in the pressure cooker?

This weather is the absolute craziest thing. Today, I saw a rainbow! It was raining and I was heading out to get my hair cut. There was a break in the clouds and a rainbow appeared! I almost stopped to get a picture and wish I had because it was not as bright for this shot:

Never in my life have I ever seen a rainbow in December. Anyway, on to the subject at hand. 

We used to eat a lot of Hamburger Helper growing up. I actually liked it a lot. Especially the cheeseburger macaroni.  For whatever reason, I got thinking about that again – even though I haven’t had it in probably 20 years. I don’t think John and I ever made an HH meal.  Of course, I realized that it would taste totally processed and not at all like I would remember it tasting. But what if I could recreate that at home? Turns out the internet is pretty handy to find stuff like that 😀  There is a section on food.com dedicated to these knockoffs. I found my cheeseburger hamburger helper. The great part is this is a 1 pot meal! 

• 1 pound of ground beef (I used Morningstar Crumbles to make it veggie for John)
• 1 cup of water
• 2 cups of milk
• 1-1/2 cups of elbow macaroni (or any pasta of choice)

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder (I used a couple tablespoons of of minced onion)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Brown the meat in a large saucepan and drain the fat (if there is any). Add all of the rest of the ingredients except the shredded cheese to the pot, mix well and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes  (larger pasta may need more time). Mix in the cheese and cook for another 2 minutes covered. Remove from the heat and let the pot sit for 5 minutes.  Then serve!

Okay, maybe not super attractive, but this was really tasty! You could sub in any type of meat like ground turkey or pork (or the veggie crumbles), vary up the cheese or the pasta shapes. That site also had versions of the other kinds of Hamburger Helper as well like the stroganoff, so we will have to try those as well! 

Any other people grow up with Hamburger Helper? 

I have steered away from microwave mug cakes forever after trying a bunch of protein ones and finding them to be dry and sponge-like.  I do like the 1-minute muffin, which doesn’t call for protein powder, so the texture is better.  I also like the banana bread breakfast pudding made with coconut flour, which I had done with pumpkin as well and so when I saw a recipe pop up in my pinterest feed, I decided to take another look at it.  I had everything on hand, so I whipped it up.  I calculated calories for hers and it was almost 500, which is just too much for me on a normal day. Maybe on a long ride day for breakfast or something, but not on the regular.  It called for 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. I really don’t think any small recipe needs that much oil in it, so I was going to sub with half applesauce, but then just figured I would do the whole thing with applesauce instead of the oil, cutting almost 200 calories off the top.

Based on this recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree
• 2 tablespoons of unsweetened applesauce
• 1-1/2 tablespoons of maple syrup (the real stuff please)
• 2 tablespoons of  coconut flour (14 grams)
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon

You could probably mix all this in the mug, but I wanted to spray the mug with cooking spray, so I got a bowl messy.  Mix all of the wet ingredients first.

I have a tiny sifter that I use for the coconut oil and the baking powder. Both of these ingredients get clumpy, so I find this to be an easy solution.  I lay the sifter on the bowl and put it on the scale to measure out the coconut flour.

Mix up and scoop the batter into your mug.  A 10 – 12 ounce mug should be fine. It’s somewhat dense and doesn’t rise a ton.

Microwave for 3 to 3-1/2 minutes. Start checking after 2-1/2 minutes to make sure it is done. You will see it fully cooked through the top when it is done.

Boom.

Then I defeated the purpose and put in on a plate because I wanted a better picture.  I topped this with half a tablespoon of butterscotch chips. The chips are getting nice and melty here, too – yay!

The verdict?  Pretty good!  It tastes like pumpkin pie. Almost a pumpkin muffin, but more moist.  I had this for lunch actually 😀  I think it would make a good breakfast or maybe a dessert.  It was surpringly filling, which I tend to find when I have any coconut flour item. 

Nutrition:  Calories 239; carbohydrates 35 g; fat 7 g; protein 9 g; fiber 6 g.   That is without the butterscoth chips. That added 40 more calories to my serving.

Notes:  If you don’t have real maple syrup (the horror), sub another liquid sweetener in it like honey. The coconut flour needs a lot of moisture so using something like brown sugar would probably make the batter too thick.

I was looking for a quick recipe to make Saturday morning and I felt like baking, but didn’t want muffins or something like that.  Then I ran across the Betty Crocker recipe for a Dutch Baby.  I had forgotten how easy these are to make.  It’s a cross between a popover and a pancake and the term originates from the Pennsylvania Dutch, although the origins of the pancake appear to be in the Pacific NW (thanks Wikipedia!).

Anyway, you can make them sweet or not.  I chose not to for this recipe from Betty Crocker, although with a different cooking technique.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup of milk (warmed)
• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• fresh ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into pieces

The first thing you want to do is set your oven to 475 F and put in a 10-inch cast iron skillet.

While this is heating up, you can assemble the batter.  It doesn’t take long.  In the list above, the room temp eggs and warmed milk will help make a puffier pancake.  I put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes and then heated up the milk for about 30 seconds in the microwave.   In a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt and nutmeg.

In a larger bowl, add the eggs and whisk until fluffy and light in color.

Stir in the milk.   Your oven has probably reached the preheat of 475 by now.  Once it has, open the oven door and put the butter pieces in the pan:

Now add the flour mixture to the batter and whisk to combine:

Carefully pour this batter into the skillet.  I removed it from the oven to do this (remember the handle is HOT!)

Reduce the oven heat to 425 F and return the pan to the oven.  Cook for about 12 minutes until puffed and golden:

It puffs up so much!  Too bad it won’t stay like that.  It does deflate as it cools.  Cut into wedges and serve however you like.  Many people do lemon and powdered sugar.  You could do maple syrup, fruit, or even bacon and cheese since this one isn’t sweet.  I chose to put an apple topping on ours:

It tastes like a cross between a crepe and a pancake and is really good.  It probably took 20-25 minutes from start to finish, so not long for a weekend breakfast.

Nutrition:  The entire dutch baby has 590 calories (made with 2% milk).  So, if served into 4 slices –  that is 145 calories per wedge.

The hot sweltering weather is gone for now and it has been really nice out.  I took a nice long ride this morning.  Work was slow, so that allowed me a longer ride.

This is me 16.5 miles later:

This ride took me about 80 minutes. The neighbors probably were wondering what I was doing trying to balance the bike on my hip and get the angle of the picture right 😀

I wanted to share this fun little project.  I am always on the look out for repurposed stuff for the garden and I saw a picture on Pinterest to recreate.  I always scope out garage sales and thrift shops looking for cheap dishes and cups for this stuff.  They don’t have to match, but this set did.

 I just used this stuff to glue the cup to the saucer:

Then hung it on a hook.  

I am concerned about squirrels putting their weight on this, so I filled it with niger seed, which the squirrels are not interested in.  Hopefully the birdies will find it soon. It seems to take a couple weeks before they notice a new feeder. At least it is cute to look at anyway.

So you know I am trying to eat different veggies this month.  We were at the farmer’s market this weekend and I picked up some yellow squash.  They look good, don’t they?

I preheated the oven to 400 F.  Then I sliced the squash into 1/2 inch slices and put them on a nonstick mat.  Then I sprayed the tops with cooking spray, salt and pepper and distributed 1/2 ounce of parmesan cheese over the top:

Bake for about 20 minutes or so until the squash is tender and the cheese is melty and a little browned.

Dinner is served!

The squash was quite good this way.

The yellow squash seems to be a lot softer than a zuchinni.  I think I might next want to try it in a quiche.  What is your favorite way to eat squash?