Instant Pot Oatmeal

Heyo! Popping back on to the blog to share my youngest's current favorite thing: oatmeal for breakfast. She loves hot meals in the morning, but she's been given a mother that doesn't function so well at that time. Enter the Instant Pot. I can make a batch of oatmeal on Sunday (or, quickly in the morning before she gets up if I forgot over the weekend...like I tend to do) that can be portioned out, popped in the microwave, and presented to a very happy 8 year old each morning. 

I am posting what I put in to make this, but this can be easily modified for special diets. My mother enjoyed sharing the oatmeal with Christiane when she stayed with us over the holidays...but the sugar content was too much for her diabetic needs. The beauty of this (aside from the ease) is you can lessen a lot of the pre-cooking flavoring, and add it at the table instead. This recipe is my current go-to, but I'm still waiting to remember I want to try apple cinnamon with real apples. This thought generally pops up at 7 am on a weekday morning when this gal hasn't had enough coffee to wield a knife and chop up apples. I'll keep you posted if I get myself together and give it a try some weekend.

Anyhoo...here's what you'll need, and how to make maple brown sugar oatmeal. This is a doubled recipe, semi modified from some other blog I found it on. I'm writing here instead of just sharing that link because it is one of those maddening video-popping up, millions of pictures, etc. to get to the good part. Here you only had to read a little of my ramblings. Or, you know, just scroll down to find the recipe since I'm not adept enough to figure out that whole "jump to recipe" button thingy.

Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal with Cinnamon

2 cups rolled oats (we like Bob's Red Mill)

2 tablespoons butter (or coconut oil if you're dairy free)

1-3 tablespoons real maple syrup (to taste / to dietary concerns)

1-3 tablespoons brown sugar (same as the syrup)

1 teaspoon cinnamon (going to be honest here, I don't actually measure the cinnamon. Sometimes it is a lot, and probably closer to 3 teaspoons if I'm not paying good attention)

Pinch of kosher salt (a GOOD pinch)

5 cups water

Put everything in in the order listed above. Give it a gentle stir. Lock the instant pot lid and set knob to sealing. Press manual, set for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes are up, give it about 10 minutes on low before venting, opening, and stirring it up. Heads up - I like to stir it up and get it the heck out of the pot into a Tupperware pretty darn quickly to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pot. 

Enjoy!

Chicken-Stuffed Bell Peppers with Black Beans and Corn

Little Sous Chef approves this message....

I have written previously about our affinity for Cuisine at home, so I won't go into too much detail here, but suffice to say, it is a wonderful magazine for anyone who enjoys spending time in the kitchen and trying new recipes.  My husband's amazing Aunt Kathy introduced me to this cook's dream of a subscription about 6 years ago...and I've said a silent thank you to her from my kitchen numerous times since!  One lovely thing about this publication is they do not have a website of recipes.  They do have a website, but the magazine that you've paid for doesn't show up for free online...ergo, making the dollars you spend on it completely worth it!  Did I say I wasn't going to go into too much detail?  Okay, I lied.  But trust me, it is so worth the "investment" of $29 for two years. The other awesome-ness about this is that not one of these recipes has been a "bomb"...they haven't all been super favorites, but I could probably do about 10 blog posts alone of recipes we absolutely love, just from Cuisine at home.

Here is one of the latest new family favorites learned from the July/August 2015 issue.  I share it with my notes, plus I have "their recipe" and "my recipe" because both times I've made this (the second time at the request of my 7 year old mind you), I've strayed a little from their instruction.

Chicken- Stuffed Bell Peppers with Black Beans and Corn

Issue No.112 July/August 2015 Cuisine at home

½ cup quinoa (dry)

1 boneless skinless chicken breast (I use 1 lb ground chicken or ground pork instead)

2 tsp olive oil

2 Tbsp seeded and minced jalapeño

2 Tbsp chopped scallion whites

2 Tbsp minced fresh garlic

1 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup fresh or frozen sweet corn

¾ cup shredded pepper Jack cheese, divided (we like our cheese, I use ¾ cup in the recipe, and another ¼ cup as garnish)

½ cup plain Greek yogurt (I use ¾ cup due to the additional ground meat)

2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1 tsp each ground cumin and chili powder

½ tsp coriander, kosher salt, and black pepper – (for both lines of spices, alter as you like, we add more heat if we add more Greek yogurt)

4 red bell peppers, halved lengthwise, stems, ribs, and seeds removed (we had green peppers in our garden, and they were delicious! The first time we made this, we used all colors of peppers)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375°

Cook quinoa according to package directions, set aside.

Their recipe:

Cook chicken in oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until completely cooked.  Transfer to a plate to cool, then shred with two forks.

Sauté jalapeño, scallion whites, and garlic in the same skillet over medium-low heat until fragrant, 2-3 minutes.  Deglaze skillet with lime juice, scraping up any brown bits.

My recipe:

Cook jalapeño, scallion whites, and garlic in oil 2-3 minutes until fragrant.  Add ground meat, breaking up with spoon and stirring in aromatics as you go.  Completely cook all meat.

Continuing with their recipe + my notes:

Combine beans, corn, ½ cup (3/4 cup if you’re us) cheese, and cilantro in a large bowl.  In a separate smaller bowl, combine yogurt with all spices, salt, and pepper, mix thoroughly.  (they have you add it all together in one bowl, I like to get the spices mixed into the yogurt first).  Mix quinoa and chicken (or pork) into ingredients in large bowl, and then add yogurt mixture.  (side note – the yogurt mixture alone also makes an amazing tortilla chip dip…just saying).  Arrange bell peppers in a 9x13-inch glass baking dish; spoon filling into bell peppers. If you're like me, you'll have way more filling than peppers.  I just bake it the same, either in the pan or in a separate baking dish.  If you only have peppers: add 2 Tbsp. water to bottom of dish to help steam the peppers. For all dishes: cover with foil and bake 30 minutes.  Remove foil; bake another 10-15 minutes.

Garnish bell peppers with remaining ¼ cup cheese and scallion greens.

5 (yes, only 5) ingredient popsicles

Recently we signed our little one up for Kiwi Crate, a monthly delivery of age appropriate themed crafts.  One of the extra bonuses are e-mails with heads up on extra crates, craft ideas, and...recipes!!! If you are a regular (well, as regular as you can be with my irregular posts) reader of this blog, you know we love to try recipes around here.  This one was for homemade orangesicles.  It was 5 ingredients....truly 5.  Not like those ridiculous "6 ingredient" meals that include some sort of processed boxed ingredient with 50 components.  No. These were, and I'm doing this totally from memory right now:
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange extract

Mix those together, pour into molds, freeze, done.  Not to mention, they are amazingly delicious.  Here is the link to the original posting on Kiwi Crate.  Next, our own pictures of Evie making her own yummy treats, and then enjoying them!

Meal Planning, courtesy of Real Simple

I received my October issue of Real Simple magazine last week.  This issue included a section A Month of Easy Dinners.  Yes please.  The cover calls it "Your no-stress plan for delicious weeknight meals."  Inside you find recipes for four weeks of weeknight dinners, colorful pictures, and tear-out shopping lists.  The lists are broken up by "what you might have" and "what you might need."  About a year ago or so they had a similar plan that Mark and I sort of tried.  By sort of I mean we read all recipes ahead of time and did a pick and choose method instead of following the plan.  This time around, I am determined to follow it to the letter...almost.  Our "weeknights" will begin on Sundays.  That way, we'll have a night to go off book in cases of dinners with Auntie and the Cousins, or pizza night with Grandpa.  Beyond that, we are also following one of our kitchen rules: the first time we try a new recipe, we do the exact recipe.  All times after we can experiment.  I'm also going to try to keep up with blogging about it to track our progress as well as share our findings and opinions of the recipes. 

Beginning of Week One:

I had taken the day off of work Friday (9/16) to prepare for house guests / get a jump on weekend chores since most of the weekend would be devoted to my 15th reunion year from college.  That's another blog entirely.  At any rate, armed with my handy tear-out meal plan / shopping list, I headed to Wegman's.  I spent close to one half hour in the produce section alone.  I was ridiculously proud of the amount of fresh ingredients populating most of the cart.  Things like savoy cabbage.  That's a new one for me.  In the produce area, selecting the correct amounts of ingredients was easy.  2 oranges?  You got it.  1 small, 2 lb butternut squash?  Check.  I did feel like a bit of an idiot though at the deli counter asking for 8 ounces of thinly sliced roast beef.  Especially when the clerk (very nicely I might add) said "so, you mean about 1/2 pound?"  Sure, for those of you who understand all that weird math stuff...  Wegman's is an awesome place to shop though because they're there for you, no matter what level of chefdom you're at. 

I did not yet add up how much the ingredients for the plan cost aside from our other groceries purchased, but the total bill was just over $200.  Hopefully, the run for just the plan ingredients next week is much less.  As much as I like new recipes and a set meal plan, $800 for a month of meals would be just ridiculous.  The plan however, is clever.  Your meals are organized so that the most perishable items will be consumed earlier in the week.  So at least there should not be waste on the front end.  I'll let you know about the leftovers.  Each recipe is supposed to feed four and I'm feeding about 2 and 1/2 (dinners are not Evie's biggest or most favorite meal of the day). 


Week 1 meal plan:
MONDAY          Salmon with Gingery Green Beans and Bok Choy
TUESDAY         Tomato Soup with Roast Beef, Cheddar, and Horseradish Panini
WEDNESDAY  Pork Chops with Roasted Beets and Oranges
THURSDAY      Chicken with potatoes, Bacon, and Cabbage
FRIDAY             Tortellini with Butternut Squash, Mushrooms, and Fontina