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Showing posts with label Instant Pot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Instant Pot. Show all posts

Summer Soup in Instant Pot


What can be more refreshing for dinner than a summer soup?

This is an enhanced tomato soup with some amazing extra vegetables. I will be honest and say that initially, I wanted tomato soup. But looking into the fridge, I found other leftover fresh vegetables that I bought originally for grilling. I hate throwing away food and hiding them in soup seemed a good idea. Actually, it was not a good idea, it was a brilliant idea. Even my husband made the comment that this soup was incredibly delicious and he loved it.

Another aspect is that since I've got my Instant Pot, all my soups are made inside. The thing that captivated me is the easiness and the speed the soup comes out from the IP. Of course, you can do it in a normal pot, just that you'll need to be around and stir from time to time while your kitchen would be full of steam.

I can only recommend this soup to be made with fresh vegetables. If you have your own garden to grow these vegetables, that would be the ideal situation. I have a garden but I cannot grow all these amazing vegetables there, so I can only rely on the Saturday market or super market. Vegetables grown in your own garden would be much more delicious, no doubt about that.

Check the recipe below. 

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Pork-turkey jelly / aspic (Piftie sau racituri de porc si curcan) in Instant Pot

I have to recognise that this year I made "piftie" for the first time in my life although it is a very popular and traditional dish for Christmas and New Year in my birth country. My mother is making this dish for the New Year with regularity and I used to eat it with pleasure.

I almost forgot about this dish since last year when a good friend of mine (who is a fantastic chef) offered me a bowl of this traditional dish and it was so good that it imprinted well in my mind and triggered a desire to try to make it myself. Throughout the year I brainstormed about where I should buy the right ingredients for it. Recently, when visiting a Romanian shop, I saw what I needed: pork ears. You can imagine that I bought and bring them home with great motivation to launch myself in making this dish.

Pork ears and pork legs are perfect but I only had pork ears for my test. It worked very well with only pork ears too. There is a reason why this dish can be made from ears, legs or skin of pork: the natural gelatin. This is the key to create the jelly aspect that transforms it from a normal soup. The turkey is added only for having a meat addition inside the jelly. It exists a version exclusively made from turkey or chicken but you need to add extra gelatin as these birds do not have enough to solidify the soup.

There is a lot of garlic in this recipe (2 heads) as it is one of its main tastes. You can play with how strong you want the garlic taste to be by leaving the garlic in or straining it out. It is a personal choice. I chose to strain it but I feel that keeping the garlic inside could have been a better choice.

This dish is served cold, that's why the original name "racituri" means "cold things".

The Instant Pot helps a great deal with this recipe because it cooks the meat in 45 minutes so well that it detaches itself from the bones. Without an Instant Pot, the second boil takes 2-3 hours on low heat.

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Greek-style chicken and rice in Instant Pot

Before knowing the Instant Pot, I thought there would be nothing to impress me in terms of cooking devices. I am not too keen to fill in my kitchen with appliances that I use once a year. This is actually a reason why I hesitated so much in buying it. I had an old pressure cooker that I used rarely and mainly for soups. The strongest point that actually convinced me to buy it was the simplicity of using it. One pot to make all inside, reduce the number of dishes to clean and the time invested in cooking.
Since then, Instant Pot was my main way of cooking soups, stews, side dishes, meat and even some cakes.

This is a Mediterranean-style dish and I arrived to make it a couple of times already. Both the meat and the rice are cooked in stages and the result is absolutely delicious. The "cherry on the cake" is the yoghurt sauce that cuts any heaviness of the dish. 

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Red Berry Cheesecake in Instant Pot

I do not know why, but I was always afraid of cheesecakes. Not to eat them but to make them. They crack, they are runny sometimes, and there are multiple ways you can get it wrong with a cheesecake. Well, the Instant Pot opened a door for me. I hated the classical way of putting water on a tray and putting the pan inside a classical oven. What if the pan is not leakproof? Then, handling a hot water tray is not very pleasant. With the Instant Pot, things are simpler and with fewer negative surprises. But this is not a commercial post for the Instant Pot, it is just my opinion. You can definitely bake this cake in a normal oven, too.

I made this cake in 2 versions, one including milk (or sour cream) and one without. The first one leads to a more creamy texture and the second one is more crumbly. The first one is soft, and the second is drier. I liked them both but my daughter detests cream texture in any cake. You can guess then which one was her favourite. 

You can do this cake without the fruity layer but it adds a full dimension to the taste of this cake. The first version I made was with strawberries, and the second was with raspberries. Both are exceptional and red berries are just an idea, you can use any fruit you want!

Sugar in this cake is kept to a minimum but it is just enough to enhance the taste of the cake. If you prefer very sweet cakes, feel free to add as much sugar as you like. Personally, I like cakes but I also like to stay on the healthy side of eating. Most of the time I do not eat the cakes that I make, they are for my kids but if I really want to eat a slice I would choose one that is the most appealing to me and this one was irresistible.

I hope you will like it too...

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Instant Pot Cranberries Yoghurt Cake

I love baking in general, but steaming was not necessarily my daily way of cooking. I challenged myself to try pressure cooking lately and a whole new world opened to me. In fact, cooking with pressure was not a new thing for me. My mother gave me a big pressure cooker pot as a present at my wedding. I need to recognise it was a love and hate relationship... I was using it for a while then it was staying for months on the shelf. Now that I think back, I think the main reason was the practicality of that pot.
So, two lovely ladies told me about their experience with the Instant Pot and I convinced myself I want to try it. I can say it was a real turning point in how I am preparing my daily meals. In a short description: healthier and faster. I added as well to my family meals new dishes that looked so complicated before. Now everything happens in one pot...
I love to explore, to test the limits and I tried to bake cakes in it also. I understood what works in it and what is not. Instant Pot cooks with steam and moist types of cakes are appropriate. I baked a classic bundt and turned out OK but it was too dense for my taste. Then, I tried a creme caramel and worked perfectly. This time I made the yoghurt cake with a recipe from my mother. Of course, I had to adapt certain things but I am happy with the result.
This type of cake is usually baked in the oven between filo pastry sheets. I used a biscuit layer instead. I replaced raisins with dried cranberries (to be more accurate I think the ones that I have are actually lingonberries - in French is "airelles", please correct me if I am wrong).
What I love about it is that it is super simple to make it and it is firm enough to keep a slice on your hand and walk away. I gave it also to my kids at school as a snack.
You can play with some decorations and it will look as fancy as you wish.
If you do not have dried cranberries, use raisins or any dried fruits. I haven't tested but I think it works perfectly with fresh berries also. Good idea, I must try this too, could be very interesting.
This cake can be called a pudding. It works with the same principles, a cereal that expends in a diary liquid. What is special though is that I use homemade yoghurt, not milk. Almond essence and lemon zest give a specific and fantastic aroma to this cake.
It will for sure enter into my regular bakes due to its simplicity and delicious taste.

Here are the ingredients...

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Creme caramel

I have known this recipe since my childhood under the name crème brûlée, or more precisely "crema de zahar ars" (in Romanian). I was surprised to find out later that its name is actually crème caramel. No matter the name, the taste is unforgettable.

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