Thursday, December 3, 2015

Honey Garlic Chicken & Veggies


This is a recipe that I just found that I'm going to try next week.  It's a slo cooker recipe that I'm going to try in the pressure cooker.  There just aren't hardly any pressure cooker recipes so I need to experiment.  Also this is only for the chicken, I'm going to try putting veggies on the rack above the chicken and see if I can get both to cook in one.  We'll see what happens

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/236609/honey-garlic-slow-cooker-chicken-thighs/print/?servings=4 
Honey-Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs
Recipe By:Myrna
"I have used it often. It's easy and uses pantry staples. Always a hit with adults and kids. Serve with basmati rice or quinoa and steamed or roasted vegetables."

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup honey
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil

Lay chicken thighs into the bottom of a 4-quart slow cooker.
Whisk soy sauce, ketchup, honey, garlic, and basil together in a bowl; pour over the chicken.
Cook on Low for 6 hours.


VEGGIES
Potatoes
Carrots
Onion


Cut into large pieces, tossed with a little extra garlic/basil.  Set on rack above the chicken.  

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Chicken Pierre - Good



I cooked this one up on Friday night.  I hate cooking on Fridays usually because after a long week I'm just done!  This one didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped, the chicken itself seemed a little bland.  I admit that the recipe said to coat the chicken in flour/salt/pepper and brown it in a skillet.  I didn't want to take that extra time and maybe that would have given it that extra bump of flavor but I'm not willing to add an extra 15-20 min to the prep time to do that.  

This is not something I made before. I found it on allrecipes.com which is my fav recipe site. There are lots of reviews which always give me good tips and advice on making the recipe even better. One tip was to use red wine instead of water and white wine instead of vinegar, I think I'll try that next time to see if it brings the extra flavor I want.  


Another change I'll be making is to cut the brown sugar way down  The sauce was really flavorful but a little sweet.  Next time I'll cut the brown sugar to 1 Tbls and if it's still to sweet I'll cut it to 1 tsp. Rather than cutting something out all together I find that it's better to cut it back little by little till I find the point where it tastes best to me.  


So the bottom line is that this was 10 min prep time, 8 min to get the pressure up and 20 min cooking on the Chicken setting for a total of 38 min.  This could be served over rice, noodles or potatoes - I cooked up some egg noodles but next time I think I'll do brown rice. That and a green salad made a really good meal.  


Chicken Pierre

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 can diced tomatoes, with liquid
1/2 cp water
2 Tbls brown sugar
2 Tbls white vinegar
2 Tble Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard powder
1 clove garlic, minced
1/8 tsp hot pepper sauce

Trim the chicken breasts and place in the pressure cooker.  Combine the tomatoes, water, brown sugar and all the other ingredients in a small bowl.  Pour this over the chicken and using the Chicken setting start the pressure cooker.  


Chicken Breasts Pierre 

Steak Roll - Success

Tuesday night I made one of my favorite crock pot recipes in the pressure cooker.  It took me just less than 15 min to get it in the pot, 8 min to get up to pressure and 25 min cooking time = 48 min total.  I used the Beef setting on the cooker. While the steak roll was cooking in the pressure cooker I threw potatoes in the microwave and sauted asparagus with grape tomatoes on the stove for a balance meal.  

The steak roll turned out very well.  It wasn't quite as tender as when I cook it 8 hrs in the crock pot but it wasn't tough at all.  The seasoning on the meat was delicious and the gravy was delicious too.  I didn't bother to thicken it like I usually do but it was quite tasty over the baked potato.  

Steak Roll
1 ½ - 2 lb boneless steak – 1”-1 1/2" thick, long and narrow – London Broil works good
½  onion - diced
1/3 cp green pepper - diced
¼ cp sun dried tomatoes - diced
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp oregano
salt & pepper

1 jar beef gravy – 12 oz
1/3 cp red wine
¼ tsp pepper

Cut the steak in half lengthwise, cutting almost but not all the way thru one long side.  Open and pound it out to an even thickness.  Sprinkle evenly with salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano.  Arrange onion, green pepper and sun dried tomatoes over the whole steak.  

Starting at one narrow end, roll the steak and secure with toothpicks.  Place steak roll in the pressure cooker.  Throw in any loose bits that fell out while you were rolling it up and any pieces of meat that you may have had to trim off.  This all helps make the gravy even better.

In a small bowl, combine the gravy, red wine and pepper.  Pour this over the steak roll, seal the pressure cooker and use the Beef setting. On mine this was 25 min after the cooker reached pressure.

When ready to serve, move the steak roll to a plate and cut into 1/2-3/4 inch slices. The end pieces aren't pretty but all in between will be nice little spirals.  

Gravy - Using a ladle remove a scoop of broth from the cooker and into a small bowl. Whisk 2-3 Tbls of flour into the broth and return it to the pot. Using the Saute setting on the cooker heat the broth till it thickens, 10-15 min.  
  

This shows the steak butterflied open with everything sprinkled on it.  When I rolled it I started on the left with the smaller end and rolled toward the right.    
Here's the steak rolled up and secured with toothpicks.  When slicing it in half I accidently cut it to thin at one point and ended up with a hole so I had to use a couple of extra toothpicks to hold that together. 
This is the steak roll sliced on a plate with the baked potato and broth spooned over all. It was great to have one of my favorite dishes on a week night. The asparagus/tomato dish isn't in the picture because I wanted to lay the steak roll out to see the spiral of it.


The following is our favorite way to prepare asparagus. I love adding the tomatoes but you have to be sure that you don't overcook them or they get mushy.
Asparagus & Tomatoes
1 lb fresh asparagus
1 container grape tomatoes or 3-4 Roma Tomatoes, chopped
2 Tbls butter
1 tsp Onion & Herb Mrs Dash (or whatever flavor you prefer)

Wash the asparagus and trim off the bottom 2-3 inches. Cut the rest of the stalk into 1 1/2-2 inch pieces. If using Roma tomatoes chop them into roughly 1 inch pieces.


Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a large sauté pan. Add the asparagus, sprinkle with Mrs Dash and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring often. Toss in the tomatoes and saute another 2 min to just warm and lightly cook the tomatoes. Serve immediately. 

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

I have a dream....

My dream will not change anyone's life but mine however it could revolutionize dinner at my house.  I enjoy cooking for special occasions but I HATE having to cook every single night of the week.  I just get sick and tired of having to decide what to cook, grocery shopping to get the ingredients, and them spending to to long in the kitchen cooking it up.  Like everyone else, I'm done when I get home from work.  I want to relax and do things I want to do but No, I have to cook the damn dinner.

In the past my solution to this has been to use a lot of boxes, cans and mixes of one sort or another to make a quick meal or the ever popular going out to dinner.  However a couple of years ago I started trying to cook healthier, with less prepared/processed foods and that means more time in the kitchen doing what I hate.

So my dream when I got this pressure cooker was that I would be able to come home, throw some ingredients in the pot, let it cook 20-40 min and have a healthy, from scratch dinner to eat.  So far that has not happened at all,  I've used it four times just after I got it with varying success and it's been gathering dust for the last couple of months.

I got this Elite 6-qt 12 setting pressure cooker about 4 months ago and I'm struggling with learning to use it.  The settings are Beef/Meat, Chicken, Vegetables/Fish, Soup/Stew, Bean/Chili, White Rice, Potatoes, are all the preset cooking times.  There's also Steam, Saute, Slow Cooker and Pressure Cooking Time where you set the pot for whatever time you want.  Finally it has a Delay Timer so you can set it to start later on and the Warm setting where it automatically goes once it's done with whatever preset you've set it at.  My question is, does the White Rice setting work on Brown Rice?


  • Keep the user manual close by.  I have mine stashed behind some canisters right there on the counter so I can easily grab it to check usage of it.  I imagine after using it a lot I won't need it any more but to start with you'll want it close by.  
  • An important thing beginners need to remember is that altho it cooks in as little as 5 min depending on what you're cooking, it takes a few minutes to build up pressure to the point that it actually begins cooking.  It's not very long, I'd guess about 7-8 min.  I haven't actually timed it but that's what it seems like.  
  • Getting the lid on was tricky for me, the only thing that seemed to help was when I got on my knees by the counter so it was at eye level with the thing.  Somehow that helped me see when it was all the way on evenly.  Maybe it also had to do with the prayer of patience that I said while on my knees.  
  • The third time I used it I couldn't get it to build pressure so it would start cooking.  After trying it about 5 times I finally noticed that the seal on the lid was loose on one side.  From now on I plan on checking that before I put the lid on to be sure it's in place.  


I can't think of any other starting tips right now.  Finding recipes for something else besides soups and stews has been a challenge.  I'm fairly picky so a lot of recipes that I see just do not sound good to me at all.  I don't really want to make soups/stews so I've had a hard time finding anything else.  The first thing I made was chicken but I can't remember what I put in to season it with.  It didn't cook through.  I had to cook it three times on the chicken setting to get it cooked all the way through.  I think maybe I put to much chicken in the pot but I can't remember now how many pieces I had put in it.  

The second thing I cooked in it was a pork loin roast which cooked fine but was pretty bland.  I ended up shredding it and tossing it in some BBQ sauce and it was fine.  It was probably bland because I didn't add enough seasoning to cook it with.  I can't remember now exactly what I cooked it with.  The third thing I cooked was chili which was fine but didn't really turn out any different than when I do it on the stove top.  Also it was a pain because I had to cook the hamburger first.  The whole point of having this is that I want to put everything in the one pot and have it all cook up together.  

As you can see I don't remember what I've cooked very well so this blog is a place for me to track the recipes that I make, how they turn out and any other tips or tricks that come up while I learn to use this thing.  I want to use it once every couple of weeks till I get a list of great recipes to choose from and then I hope to use it once or twice a week.