1 Recipe, 1 Tool, 2 Preps

If you saw my post from a couple days ago, you saw my new "kitchen toy".

It's a Power Pressure Cooker PRO
and I have enjoyed using it.  Recently life has been pretty hectic and we all know having a tool where dinner can set up ahead of time is worth it's weight in gold! One thing I run into is having limited space makes it impractical to have several different machines to do different things.



This machine ill pressure cook, slow cook, it has a stew setting, pressure canning setting, rice cooker and browner settings. I didn't use the browning setting for these recipes as I am trying this one thing at a time.

On to the recipe.

I had picked up a package of large cube steaks and was going to cook them as a kind of Swiss Steak/Pepper Steak hybrid.  You know the old saying "best laid plans"? That is kind of what happened to me. I didn't have any fresh peppers as I thought, nor did I have any fingerling potatoes. How does one forget they used the fingerling potatoes?

So I improvised.

Rather than cook it all at once and heat up the leftovers I decided to use half one day and pressure cook it and the other half the next day using the slow cooker function.

On to the recipe. I had two 1# cube steaks. I cut these into smaller pieces. Rather than dredge them in flour I used a shaker can of flour and shook flour, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powders on one side. Like this:

I then put 3 Tablespoons of Light Olive Oil in a skillet and set the burner temp to medium. When the oil was hot I placed the meat flour side down in the oil. While that side browned I added the flour, salt, pepper and powders to the other side.

While the meat was browning I added 1-1/2 cups beef bullion, 1/2 a can of petite diced tomatoes and 1/2 cup each of diced onions and diced peppers (from the freezer) to the pressure cooker.

When the meat had finished browning I added it to the pressure cooker, closed the top and set it for 10 minutes at the default pressure, which is about 14 PSI.

While the meat was cooking I added 3 cups of beef bullion to a saucepan, brought it to a boil and added wide egg noodles until the noodles were
just below the level of the liquid. I boiled these for 5 minutes and then removed from the heat and covered to allow them to finish cooking while the meat finished.

The end result:

Tasty noodles and tender meat.

For the second day, I used the same recipe using the slow cooker (Low Temp Cook) function and also cooked some rice in beef bullion.

Since I was going to be out I used the delay cook timer and set it to cook for 1-1/2 hours. I was gone longer then expected and still had to cook the rice when I got home. No problem, the Keep Warm feature kept the food hot and ready until I was set to serve it up!

Both ways were tasty and tender. The pressure cooked meat was tender with still a bit of chewiness.  The pressure cooked meat as a little more tender but not falling apart.  If you desire your meat to be practically falling apart I would use the pressure cooker for 15 minutes instead of 10 and the slow cooker feature for 2 hours instead of 1-1/2.

Also, if one desired the juices in the pot could be made into gravy.  I may try that next time.

I hope you try this recipe and enjoy it!

My New Toy

I did it. I finally got a pressure cooker! To be honest, I've had it a few months, but with everything going on I haven't had time to blog about it.

 

Power Pressure Cooker PRO

It's a Power Pressure Cooker PRO. I have used it a few times. I've pressure cooked chicken, dry beans and beef stew and used the slow cooker feature for beef stew and for pepper steak. They all came out good and I hope to try more items in the VERY near future. One of the features I am looking forward to trying is the pressure canning feature.

Be sure to check in often, or sign up to follow my blog, as I see what I can do with this amazing piece of equipment!

Parmesan Garlic Roasted Potatos

I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but I can't. This recipe was originally on the Fuller Brush corporate blog, it is so good I'm posting it here!

Makes 6 servings


Ingredients:
2 pounds red potatoes
1/3 cup olive oil
1  teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1.5 tablespoons minced garlic (0r 4 cloves)
1.5 teaspoons fresh parsley
1.5 teaspoons fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1.5 tablespoons parmesan cheese


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Slice the potatoes in halves or quarters (try to make evenly sized pieces). Place the potatoes in the stoneware dish and mix in the olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, parmesan and garlic. Toss until the potatoes are evenly coated and well mixed. Place your stoneware dish in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes or until browned. Toss once or twice during the baking process. If the potatoes aren't browned enough at the 30 minute mark, remove the lid and bake uncovered. Remove the potatoes from the oven and garnish with parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a little extra parmesan if desired.

Honey Kefir Bread

A little while back I saw a link to this post by The Restless Chipotle on making Honey Buttermilk Bread.  I pretty much avoid breads due to wheat allergies.  Yeah, I cheat once in a while.  So sue me.

There were a few things I needed to tweak for it to work for me. First, because of a rash on my hands (probably from cheating on the wheat products  - but those cookies were good!) I couldn't knead the dough. So it had to be doable in the bread machine.

Second, I didn't have any buttermilk, but I do make my own dairy kefir so I decided to substitute that instead. I purchased my kefir grains from Cultures for Health. They are very helpful, my first attempt at kefir didn't work and they replaced the grains and gave me some excellent advice which ultimately enabled me to get homemade kefir going.

If your kefir is thick you may want to thin it down a bit with some milk to where it has the consistency of buttermilk.

Back to the bread. It's a simple recipe, nothing exotic, and you can go from Zero-Yum in about 3-1/2 hours. Add the following ingredients to the bread pan in the order listed. This is for a 1-1/2 pound loaf.

1 Cup Kefir
2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
1/4 Cup Honey
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Cups Flour

Now stop and smooth the flour out over the liquid ingredients to form a barrier between these last two ingredients and the liquid.

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
2 Teaspoons Dry Yeast

At this point you turn on the bread machine and go take a nap.  :-)  All bread machines I am aware of have a 3 hour cycle.  In 3 hours your bread should be ready, tap it out of the bread pan onto a wire rack and allow to cool 20 minutes before slicing.

It will still be warm, slather on some butter and enjoy!

Rum Based BBQ Sauce

If you ever have looked, almost everything these days has corn syrup in it.  I don't eat corn because of food allergies. So onto the internet I went, looking at various recipes.  I found one by Steven Raichlen on his Barbeque! Bible website titled RumBullion BBQ Sauce. This was last Tuesday. I bookmarked the page so I could return to it closer to the weekend and make the sauce.  I knew I was going to have to tweak it because he uses soy sauce and I would have to either use corn syrup free ketchup or make my own.  No biggie.

So when I went back to his page on Friday, he had redesigned his website and the link took me to his home page. I used his search feature. No Luck.  Went through page after page of recipes on his site. No Luck.

This wasn't working out as planned.

So back to Google I went.  I typed "RumBullion" in the search box and got several results. None on the first page had the recipe.  But on the second page I found a Boston Globe article with an adaptation of the recipe.  It looked close enough to what I remembered of the original that I went with it.

Here is what I came up with:

1/4/cup Dark Rum
1/4 cup Honey
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Molasses
3 Tablespoons Worcester Sauce (Lea & Perrin's is gluten free)
Juice of 1 Small Lemon
Juice of 1/2 Small Orange
1 Tablespoon Distilled Vinegar
1/4 Teaspoon Hickory Liquid Smoke
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt

1 Cup Tomato Sauce

This allowed me to avoid anything with corn syrup in it and avoid the soy sauce in the original recipe.

Directions:

Place everything except the ketchup in a medium saucepan and stir well.  Bring it to a boil and reduce heat to allow it to simmer for about 5 minutes.  Add tomato sauce, stir well and return to a boil.  Reduce heat again and allow it to simmer until desired consistency.

Taste it.  To be honest, I thought it was a bit too sweet but decided to allow it to set overnight to allow the flavors to continue to mingle before changing anything.  So I let it cool down and poured it into a jar to refrigerate overnight. I'm not sure refrigeration is needed as everything that goes in it is stored at room temp, but better safe than sorry.

I was making this as the BBQ sauce to add to my BBQ Beans (recipe upcoming) and to use on the burgers we were going to grill.

The next morning I removed the sauce from the fridge and tasted it.  The flavors had mixed together some and it didn't seem as sweet.  So I decided to use it "as-is".

The beans were very good, as was the sauce added on the burgers after cooking. While I don't know if I would use this recipe on beef again, I think it would be great with pulled pork or shredded chicken.

I may have to go get a pork shoulder and whip up another batch of this to test my theory!

Maple Baked Beans

I decided to try something with my Crock Pot Baked Beans recipe. A really simple switch, I subtracted the sugar and molasses, and added 3/8 cup of Maple Sugar. As you can note in the linked article, and as I found out using Maple Syrup in my Coconut Flour Banana Bread, Maple is about twice as sweet as cane sugar. So I dropped the 3/8 cup each of sugar and molasses, and substituted 3/8 cup of Maple Sugar.  It came out very good!  A hint of maple flavor but not too sweet.  I think you could go to 1/2 cup and not be too sweet. I may try that in the future.

I'm not going to reprint the whole recipe here, if you have some maple sugar or REAL maple syrup and want to give it a try, check the basic recipe using the link above and make the substitution as noted.

I bet you like it!

Quick Rolls

If you saw the picture in yesterday's Easter Dinner post, you may have noticed a strange looking dinner roll on the plate.  I am supposed to avoid wheat, but I gave myself a "cheat day" for the holiday.

I had remembered late in the day that while I was avoiding wheat, others weren't.  So I needed a quick recipe for dinner rolls.  I found a couple "30 minute dinner rolls" recipes on Google (like this one), but they didn't exactly strike my fancy.  So what I did was use them with my own twist.

Be warned, this dough rises fast! I had to punch it down twice, and because of that I didn't have enough time after the final punch down to allow it to fully rise again.  They were still very good tasting, with a texture about halfway between a biscuit and a roll.  Had they been allowed to rise that final time I'm sure they'd have had a good roll texture.

Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup yogurt
1 egg
3 to 4 cups flour

Mix the yeast and water and allow to sit until the yeast hydrates a little (about 10 mins).  Add the sugar and let it sit another 10 mins and look at how it is going to town!  Add the yogurt and egg and mix well.  Add a cup of flour to start.  I'm a bit old fashioned and I add it with a spoon.  Mix it in, then begin adding 1/2 cup of flour at a time until you can't stir it any longer.  Add another 1/2 cup and begin mixing by hand.  When you've added about 2-1/2 to 3 cups of flour you should be able to turn it out onto a floured board.  Once you're working it on the floured board, add flour 1/4 cup at a time until you have a good textured dough ball. Continue working (kneading) the dough for another 5 minutes.

Here's where I was stuck yesterday.  I had the dough ready but was still about an hour from time to put it in the oven. So I put the dough into an oiled bowl, turning the doughball to get it covered with oil.  Had I been closer ready to cook the rolls, I would have skipped this step and went right to forming the rolls.

As I prepped other items for the dinner, I checked the dough.  It was rising fast!  I punched it down once at about 30 minutes, and again at 1 hour as I was ready to form the rolls.

I oiled my hands and pinched off a piece of dough slightly smaller than a tennis ball (about the size of a medium lemon).  This gave me 7 pieces, which was perfect for the cast iron skillet I planned on using. Spacing 6 around the sides of the oiled skillet and 1 in the middle I covered them with a towel while I finished other items (another 10 minutes).  They hadn't risen the way I would like, but it was time to cook!

I cooked them in a 400*F oven for 20 minutes.  They came out good, I just wish I had been able to allow them to rise a little more before cooking.

The roll in the picture is the center roll, and the others were similar.  While these are ready quickly, I wouldn't start them too far ahead of time in the future!