Category: Instant Pot

Revisiting the Instant Pot?!

Revisit the Instant Pot?!

Why yes,  let’s revisit the Instant Pot!

I’ve learned to appreciate it so much! Well, for a few things anyway! Apparently there is a vast world of Instant Pot recipes, and for that reason, I’ll continue using it!

Let’s talk about my favorite food item in the Instant Pot! Or at least the ones I have tried!

POTATOES!

I absolutely LOVE potatoes! But honestly, the prospect of making mashed potatoes on the stove top is daunting! Especially with my heat intensity issues on the current stove!

So the first thing I love is how easy it is to set up! Seriously!

Peel. Cut. Drop in Pot. Cover with Water. Go.

Ok, so let’s go a bit more step by step!

Cut potatoes in equal sized rounds and toss them in the pot! There is no specific amount, I just cut enough to cover the bottom, but not overlap too much!

Cover with water and add Salt and Pepper to Taste!

Set your lid, close the vent and cook on manual pressure for 8 minutes! I always turn the Keep Warm button off!

Once the timer goes off, do a quick release !

Drain your potatoes! Add in whatever you normally use in your mashed potatoes! I use butter, milk and S&P! Or add in sour cream!

Then just mash away!

Delicious! Every time! And I don’t have to worry about a pot boiling over on the stove! Obviously a very important thing, since I mentioned it earlier!

Revisit the instant pot
Finished Product

Making mashed potatoes in the instant pot significantly cuts down on the mess I have to clean up afterward with boil overs! This will be a continued theme throughout this post! Obviously boil overs drive me nuts!

Baked Potatoes…😋

I love me some baked potatoes! But honestly, it’s not something I think of immediately, usually not until it is entirely too late to go baking them in the oven! And since we don’t have a microwave, there wasn’t another option!

Before NOW!

I love how simple it is!

First ~ Put the steamer basket in the pot!

Second ~ Put a few washed and poked potatoes on the basket.  I use about 4 or 5, depending on size. I always go for uniform size so that they cook evenly! Uniform(ish) 😆 No 2 potatoes are the same!

Anyway, 4-5 potatoes, kinda close in size. Don’t forget to poke some holes in the potatoes.

Last ~ Lid on. Vent closed. Pressure cook on high as follows:

Small ~ 5 oz ~ 12 minutes
Medium ~ 6-7 oz ~ 14 minutes
Large ~ 8 oz ~ 16 minutes
Extra Large ~ 10-14 oz ~ 18-20 minutes

At the end of the cooking time, allow the Instant Pot to do a natural release. Open the lid and pop those babies out with some tongs!

Then, of course, top with your favorites!

Clearly faster than the oven!

I have made Hard Boiled Eggs as well!

Again, not much different in the timing as compared with stove top, but definitely worth not having to watch for pot boil over 😆

Besides, they are super easy to peel! I love that aspect! I hate when I have to pick at an egg 🙄 Mostly because I have very little patience in the kitchen 😐 work in progress, obviously 😑

 

Perfect Egg 😍

Yolk just the way I like it!

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs….

First, put the steamer basket in the Pot.  Second, Place the eggs on top. I made 6 eggs because that’s how many fit in without being crowded!

I have a 6 qt Instant Pot and the minimum amount of water is 1.5 Cups, so that’s how much I put in.

Finally ~ Set your lid, close the vent, and Manual Cook on low for (3 minutes for soft boiled, 4 minutes for medium boiled, 5 minutes for hard boiled). Turn Keep Warm Off!

Allow to do a Natural Release.

That’s it! Once the pressure is released, pop open the lid and have some delicious eggs!

Obviously an easy alternative to the stove! In fact, it’s the only way I will cook them now!

And White Rice was a definite try!

Again, super easy. Same rules apply here as with stove top.  Two cups of water to one cup of rice. I’m sure you can adjust the water ratio to your liking, we like our rice a little sticky and this ratio works perfectly! So adjust accordingly 🙂 Clearly sticking to your instant pots minimum amount!

High Pressure Cook for 4 minutes, and do a Natural Release!

Will I continue to Revisit the Instant Pot?

Heck yes!

I’ve really just done these few things successfully! Tried other things, such as frozen chicken when we forgot to take something out for dinner that morning, but it was meh 😐!

Of course, I wish I had gotten one a long time ago! At this point, it has made my starch making so much easier, and best of all, cleaner!

Next thing for me to try is proteins ! Let’s see what kind of recipes I can find for that! Soon!

Time to experiment! Along with my Personal Taste Tester, Zach 😁

Our New Instant Pot ~ And Our Failures!

When it comes to living in a bus, the one thing you need to do is downsize. And after you are done with that, you need to downsize some more. We had a rice cooker, and a crockpot, and an air fryer, and while we used the rice cooker a lot, the crockpot was too big to make meals for 2 and the air fryer rarely made its way out of storage.   So we thought if we got an instant pot, we could essentially downsize from 2-3 appliances to just one.  

We ended up finding a GREAT deal at Walmart for a 6-qt Instant Pot Duo. We tried to find a 3-qt but had very little luck and when we did, they cost as much as the larger ones.  So as long as it FIT under the floor to store it, we have a nice freezer to put leftovers in 🙂 I purchased this one because it had the features I wanted, and it was $50* with Free Shipping.  Black Friday pricing to my door?  I’m in!! 

So, the first night we tried it (after doing the recommended water test), we found a recipe for using frozen chicken breast, uncooked rice and vegetables. We had the frozen chicken breast and uncooked rice, but we used frozen vegetables instead of fresh.  Followed the instructions for cooking and away we went.  To Mushy Rice Boulevard.  The chicken was cooked great, the vegetables weren’t terrible. There were these pockets of herb bombs that came with some of the vegetables. But a fail

Pretty sure it was the extra water in the frozen vegetables that caused the excessive mushiness.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Fast forward to the next night and I decide to make us Sesame Chicken. Halfway through cooking it and I remember our disastrous dinner from the previous night included the last of our white rice. So, Zach offered to go to the one store in town, Dollar General. Where they had no white rice.  No brown rice.  Just Knorr side dishes, and instantly ready in 90 seconds in the microwave rice. All fine, but… I’m looking to use it with Sesame Chicken :/  So I just tell him to get whatever might go with the meal being made and continue cooking.  

He ended up with a Knorr Side dish, herbs and butter, or something like that. Best option. 

We really had no clue how to make it in the instant pot, and maybe should have just stove topped it, but we had a new toy, so into the instant pot it went. Like we were making straight up white rice. 

It was mushy

I’m sure this time it was the fact that the rice was pre-cooked in some fashion for quick cooking at home?!  Maybe? 

((Funny thing is, the next morning… I realized we DO have rice.  We have a bag of Sushi Rice.  Not sure how that cooks up ))

So it gets better.  Zach LOVES BACON.   It’s almost a daily in this house.   Normally cooked on the stove in cast iron.  Zach decides he’s going to look up how to cook bacon in the Instant Pot.   Something about opening and closing it a billion times with 2-3 minute intervals of flipping bacon.   And it was a fail. A finish it in the cast iron skillet kind of fail

I am trying hard boiled eggs in this thing today.  So many people rave about this one thing.  Hard boiled eggs, easy in the instant pot.  For us too???   I’m not into “new” so it may be my unwillingness to give up the pots and pans, but I’m willing to try.  Hopefully eggs will win me over.  I’m very particular about my eggs

Stay tuned.  I’m determined my next post about the Instant Pot is filled with success !!

*Price as of this post is $50.  Regular price listed is $81.99.

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