Ode to my Instant Pot

I LOVE my Instant Pot. Nope I really do love it, maybe more than any other piece of cooking equipment I have. Well at least besides my knives, but that is another story for another day. I’m sure your saying to yourself, Jennifer it’s just a slow cooker on steroids right? No. I mean yes it is a slow cooker if you want it to be but show me a slow cooker that can saute, cook rice, make soup and a myriad of other things. I’ve made soups, stews, roasts, rice dishes, squash, chicken and so many other things in that pot. I think the only thing I haven’t made in it yet is a cake, only because I haven’t purchased the silicone spring-form insert and my spring-form is to big to fit in it. Oh and I haven’t made wine it even though there are recipes for that floating around Facebook, that just looks icky.  I’m always amazed at how tender any protein I cook comes out and how flavorful any soup or broth is. I’ve yet to over cook rice in it and the one time in the beginning that I over cooked veggies, I just whipped them up to become whipped carrots and potatoes. Need to be more clever than good sometimes 🙂

I’ve made soups the last couple of weeks and I love that using the Instant Pot to cook them takes something I would have cooked on the stove or in my crock pot for several hours come out packed with flavor in just 20 minutes. It doesn’t cut down the prep times, you still need to cut your veggies, you still need to season and brown your proteins but what it does for you is give you back the time you would have spent while you had a stockpot simmering on the stove. I have a couple of little tricks that have helped build a level of flavor in my soups the last few weeks that I’m still amazed by. Last week I made a pretty yummy chicken and veggie soup with turmeric. Side note, turmeric is really good for helping combat inflammation and takes the flavor level up chicken soup up a notch. I started this soup by putting the carcass of a rotisserie chicken we had picked up into my pot. Before I did that though I picked the remaining meat off the bones, discarded the skin and broke the carcass apart just a bit then put it in the instant pot and added a really nice, higher quality chicken broth and some water and covered the carcass. I then cooked it under pressure for about 30 minutes. While the instant pot was working its magic I took the time to cut up my onions, celery, carrots, zucchini and broccoli. I also cut up some red potatoes and held them in water. Once the bones and broth had gone through one cooking, I strained it and let it cool so I could skim any fat off and while that was cooling I saute’d my mirepoix, or celery, carrot, onion mix, in a bit of olive oil. I added salt, pepper, turmeric, a pinch of ground mustard, some Italian herbs and a bit of cayenne to the mix and then I strained the broth one more time and poured it over the mixture in the instant pot. I wanted to really seal in that flavor I had created in my mirepoix  with all the spices so I put it on manual for about 5 minutes more. After that cycle was done I took the lid off and at this point I added the chicken, potatoes, zucchini and broccoli. I noticed the liquid had cooked off a bit so I added the rest of the quart of chicken stock I had started with and then I could have just put it onto slow cook or soup but I wanted a bowl of the soup sooner so I put it back on pressure cook for about 3 minutes this time and the let the steam naturally release. With in half an hour I had one of the best soups I had made in a long time. Total cooking/prep time: about an hour. After that hour that soup tasted like it had been simmering all darn day. And it got better over the next couple of days.

With the success of that soup I made another soup this at the end of the week and this one was a tomato based soup also chock full of veggies and oh so good, especially with the freezing cold temps and snow the last few days. I have been thinking about making beef stew this weekend along with some bread. We will see what happens as I should make the guys in my office some goodies this weekend for all the help they gave me with my Bug which again that is another story. If you don’t have an Instant Pot I would highly suggest you get one. Don’t let it intimidate you. There are tons and tons of FB groups, online recipes and just about any other info you could ever need with a quick internet search. I find with just my sweet hubby and I that whatever I make lasts a few days so do be prepared for leftovers. Have fun and experiment, that’s the fun of cooking after all.♥

(Note: my instant pot doesn’t have the make yogurt feature, which is fine with me and it is 6 qt. capacity which is plenty big enough for my little family)