OT- What's for dinner?

kteague wrote: My family likes it stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese on the inside. Ground beef has been too expensive for our crew to have it often.

How do you stuff a meatloaf??? Seems like it'd fall apart. Maybe you could make a mashed potato and cheese log, freeze it solid, then wrap the minced meat around it? Thaw it and then pop it in the oven. That's a lot of work tho. Sounds good however it's done. We've been eating minced lamb from New Zealand because it's usually under five dollars a pound - so tasty with moderate fat content.

nanwilson wrote:

Cardsfan wrote:what's instant pot?

Didn't know about "instant" pot, I thought you had to grow it...........

I just made a batch of chicken enchiladas, only downside is my family just decided they are coming for dinner

By the way, just had a grilled cheese and tomatoe soup for lunch.... yummy best comfort food around!

Yeah, if you really want a thrill, google "instant pot brownies"

Instant pot is an electric pressure cooker that's inspiring a cult. There are a few models, mine is a "7-in-1". It works as an electric pressure cooker, a slow cooker, a rice cooker, a steamer, a yogurt maker, and you can sauté right in the pot. It has a timer function for delayed start and it has a keep warm function so you don't have to be standing there every minute. No worries about it blowing up because it has multiple layers of safety features, and it's not a big scary pot you have to carry to the sink for "quick pressure relief" . I love, love, love mine because it's fast, convenient, easy to use.

Did I mention those wings were frozen? I took them straight from the freezer to the pot, it took about 10 minutes to come to pressure then 20 minutes to cook the wings. In conventional cooking I'd have to defrost them first and then cook them for a long time to achieve the same results. We use the pot nearly every day. If you're interested wait until Black Friday--Amazon has incredible sales. Anyway, it features heavily in my meal prep. Love using it in the summer because it doesn't heat the whole house. And during the winter I can throw ingredients in the morning and come home to hot food. It's especially great for broth (about 1 hour for perfectly gelled broth) And I make coconut milk yogurt once or twice a week. Love that more than anything else--put a jar full of coconut milk and some culture in the pot, and 12 hours later it's been magically transformed into yogurt.

My SIL says I sound like an IP evangelist. I gave her my 6-in-1 when I upgraded (no yogurt function on that model) and she loves it now, too.

I don't have the "Instant Pot". Mine is a 6 qt Power Cooker--lots of different modes,
But weird--the pressure is expressed in kiplopascals instead of psi, but math is not hard.
I steamed the Brussels sprouts, pressure cooked the sweet potatoes and the steak, after sauteeing.

Tacos Piscado and Borracho Beans

Last night was beef unstroganoff (husband uses mayo instead of sour cream) noodles for the family (not me), sautéed Swiss chard, and the last of the farmers market heirloom tomatoes. I will miss real tomatoes among the endless parade of chard, kale and cabbages! The year is winding down. (But delicata squash is a consolation prize!).

I thought it was instant potatoes, not a real pot.

Cardsfan wrote:I thought it was instant potatoes, not a real pot.

You aren't alone. That's what I first thought until I realize it was a type of cooking pot.

I have one of the Power Cookers like CF uses. Electric pressure cooker. I got it last year on a Black Friday sale at Walmart. I use a pressure cooker a lot because I don't plan well in advance to use the slow cooker and my old stove top gas pressure cooker was acting weird on me.
The only downside to the Power Cooker for me is that it doesn't hold as much as my old pressure cooker but it holds enough to get multiple meals ..just maybe not quite as many. I still get enough for me to have probably 2 extra left over meals along with giving hubby 3 or 4 to take on the road. With the old cooker I could get maybe an additional 3 more meals for leftovers depending on what I was cooking.

The Instant Pot looks interesting but I know me and most likely the only thing I would use it for is the pressure cooking and since I have a relatively new pressure cooker it would probably be one of those things I didn't fully utilize if I got it. Now if the Power Cooker up and dies on me then I might look at the Instant Pot a little closer.

Maybe I have a kitchen hoarding problem.
I never use slow cookers any more, I hate to plan that far ahead--and the flavors are always the same.
Yet I probably have around four.
I just bought a Gourmia sous vide pod from B3, not as fancy as the Anova that PR uses,
but why have Bluetooth when my phone has a TIMER?
I'm looking forward to tender CHEAP meat and perfect eggs--and even pasteurized eggs!
Raw cookie dough!

chunkyfrog wrote: I just bought a Gourmia sous vide pod from B3, not as fancy as the Anova that PR uses,
but why have Bluetooth when my phone has a TIMER?

mine pre-dates the bluetooth one. it's just got a touchscreen on top for temp ...and a timer that I rarely bother using, with SV, time isn't critical, so a glance at the clock suffices for me

Timers are indispensable for me.
I used to bake by smell. Cookies are easy--eggs and potatoes, not so much.

chunkyfrog wrote:Timers are indispensable for me.
.

For me too. I start reading or doing stuff on the computer and I lose all sense of time.

chunkyfrog wrote:Timers are indispensable for me.
I used to bake by smell. Cookies are easy--eggs and potatoes, not so much.

right, but with sousvide 1) there's no smell... because all those flavorbits that normally break out and float around the house end up staying in the food, and 2) time, after you've reached the 'enough', isn't very important. the only time amount that's important is leaving stuff in long enough for the center to come up to temp.

you can cook a steak for an hour and a half or four hours and it'll come out the same, once it reaches the desired temp, it just holds.

now, over around four hours, things start to change... which is why tough things like ribs can go up to three days to tenderize and become amazing.

chunkyfrog wrote:Maybe I have a kitchen hoarding problem.
I never use slow cookers any more, I hate to plan that far ahead--and the flavors are always the same.
Yet I probably have around four.
I just bought a Gourmia sous vide pod from B3, not as fancy as the Anova that PR uses,
but why have Bluetooth when my phone has a TIMER?
I'm looking forward to tender CHEAP meat and perfect eggs--and even pasteurized eggs!
Raw cookie dough!

I have been cooking Sous Vide for about 4 years now and am happy to learn there are others on this site (and I thought all we talked about here was Cpap and politics)

Great way to cook meat but especially the tough cuts. Slower than a slow cooker for the tough cuts (48 hours for a chuck roast but tastes like a rib roast), but makes a perfect steak every time and only takes a couple hours for something as tender as a Rib eye. I do like the soft boiled eggs, perfect.

Roast beef, roast potatoes, brussels spouts, rutabaga, savoy cabbage, yorkshire puddings, gravy and a pint of Guinness

How about....http://imgur.com/a/PlCnX ....Yum!