Pork & Vegetable Soup

Cycling through really old meat from the freezer. This ground pork package was from 2021 and so were the canned beans. What makes it really tasty is the addition of aged balsamic vinegar before serving. This is a two-technique process, using a pressure cooker for the first part, and the slow cooker for the second.

Pressure Cooker Ingredients:

1 lb ground pork (was frozen; but you can use fresh)

sea salt & fresh ground black pepper, to taste

1 c water

Pressure Cooker Directions:

Add ingredients to pressure cooker. Cook 5 mins on high. Quick release.

Slow Cooker Ingredients:

One 14.5 oz can organic diced tomatoes

One 15 oz can great Northern beans

1 tsp dried oregano

3 Yukon gold potatoes, diced

2 organic carrots, sliced thick

6 cups of water

2 tbsp Better than Buillion Beef

Slow Cooker Directions:

Cook on Low for 8 hours

I did this recipe as an overnight recipe and had it for breakfast the next day. Per bowl, I added 1-2 tsp aged balsamic vinegar before serving. Though, this is not necessary.

Cold Oven Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Found this recipe on Reddit and the batter was enough to make 12 cupcake-sized pound cakes and one loaf for a work potluck. The cupcake-sized pound cakes got overbaked, and were of a hockey puck consistency, so didn't get anyone to eat them. Was able to slice up the loaf, and had a few takers for that. Not sure why it wasn't as popular of a homemade dessert; but the three-layer cake someone else made was more appealing.

Flour measuring method: scoop with a spoon into measuring cup and level

Substitution for cake flour

1 cup cake flour = 1 cup all purpose flour minus 2 tbsp flour plus 2 tbsp cornstarch

Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (8 T. each)
8 oz. cream cheese
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups cake flour
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Start with ingredients at room temperature. Butter and flour a loaf 9x5x3 loaf pan and set aside. I have a silicone loaf pan and just lightly grease the inside with unsalted butter.

Using a stand mixer, combine cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla extract until light in color and fluffy. Then, add a whole egg, one at a time and mix to incorporate each egg before adding the next.

Pour batter evenly into a loaf pan or into silicone muffin cups.

Do not preheat oven. Start the bake in a cold oven.

Bake pound cake for 1.5 hours at 325 F, if using an angel food cake tube pan. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before removing from the pan.

Bake for 70 minutes at 325 F, if using a loaf pan. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack before unmoulding.

Bake for 25 minutes at 350 F, if using making cupcake/muffin tin.

Sun-dried tomato and castelvatrano olive relish

It would appear that I have no mayonnaise in stock. However, I have a lot of green olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Aside from eating this with crackers, it can also be used as a spread on sandwich bread.

Ingredients

200 g sun-dried tomatoes

700 g castelvatrano olive, pitted

125 g red wine (cabernet, merlot, or malbec)

1 fresh garlic clove, minced

olive oil, for consistency

Pulse together in a food processor until desired consistency.

Will the real Cheese, please stand up

Despite my folks and relatives avoiding most dairy cow products, I love non-vegan cheese. Look, don't get me wrong, "cheese" product made with cashews is fine as a spreadable cheese, but sometimes, you just want to make a gooey grilled cheese sandwich (because it's now autumn and roasted tomato basil soup + grilled cheese sandwiches are delicious), add some cheddar to ramen noodles, or nibble on cheese blocks with cured slices of meat.

Here's what's in a typical plain cashew cheese recipe:

• raw cashews (1 cup cashews = 1 cup of cheese product)
• nutritional yeast (for flavor)
• fresh lemon juice
• garlic powder, black pepper, (optional flavorings)
• salt

Here's what's in a typical cow milk-based cheese recipe:

• whole cow milk (1 gal = 8 oz farmer's cheese)
• fresh lemon juice
• salt, optional

What goes into a farmhouse cheddar cheese recipe:

• whole cow's milk
• plain yogurt or active kefir with probiotics
• rennet (to make a firmer cheese)
• animal: stomach lining of young cows, sheep, or goats
• vegetarian: derived from plants such as thistle, nettle, artichokes, figs, or caper leaves
• salt
• butter (dairy milk fat) or lard (rendered pork fat) - used to coat the finished pressed cheese
• unchlorinated water

And for a vegan "spreadable" cheese product that can be used as a replacement to make "meltable" cheese in a grilled cheese sandwich (recipe ratio from the Minimalist Baker):

• raw cashews
• peeled carrots
• water
• tapioca starch
• nutritional yeast
• apple cider vinegar
• salt
• garlic powder
• ground mustard
• ground tumeric (for color)

If you're thinking that nut-based cheeses don't have saturated fat like animal products, think again because 1 ounce of cashews has 2.2 grams of saturated fat. 1 cup of raw cashews in a typical cashew cheese recipe will have 17.6 grams of saturated fat. 1 cup of whole cow milk has 8 grams of saturated fat. Contrary to how the anti-cow media has presented dairy to the public, whole milk is the healthier of the two.

Cost-wise, about the same in 2023 prices comparing raw cashews to organic whole milk.

Prep time:

• dairy cheese: assuming you didn't have to milk the cow and picked up at least a gallon of non- or low pasturized milk from the grocery store; a couple hours for farmer's cheese/ricotta/cream cheese; 3-4 weeks minimum for aged cheddar cheese; mozzarella in less than an hour
• vegan cheese: can be made in 1-2 days (raw cashews need to be pre-soaked)

The other downside to cashew "cheese" is that it has the consistency of chunky cream cheese and is used wherever a 'spread" or the look of the "cheese" in the finished cooked product doesn't matter. E.g., as a substitute for ricotta cheese in lasagna or ravioli, as a sauce or spread used with crackers.

Frozen Chicken Thighs for Dinner

This has been one of my go-to meals this year. Mostly because I'm both tired and lazy; and after work, I just want something simple without a lot of prep. Thank goodness that the Ninja Foodi still works after two years. This uses the stainless steel rack insert that the NF comes with.

In the NF, insert stainless steel rack and add 1 cup of water.

On the rack, place frozen chicken thighs.

Season to your liking. I use sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, and garlic powder.

No pre-heating needed.

NF settings: 10 minutes on HIGH. Natural release 20 minutes.

Stab with meat thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh. Should read at least 165 F. If not, flip the thighs over and set NF to air crisp settings (390 F) for 5 minutes.

You can use the same prep time doing other things while the chicken is cooking; such as preparing a vegetable dish stovetop or a salad or whatever.

You can cook rice at the same time; though I have not tried this because the chicken needs that water to pressure cook & steam to perfection; the rice also uses the same amount of water to cook. The remaining liquid is essentially chicken broth and can be used or consumed.

Side note: when chicken thighs (bone-in with skin) are on sale ($0.99/lb or BOGO) at my local Fred Meyer grocery store, I buy . .  a lot. Half gets baked or grilled, then eaten in meals for the week. I freeze the rest in 2 thighs per resealable quart bag.

Let's say that you did nothing at meal time with the leftover chicken broth. You could add more water and add uncooked rice to make a congee for breakfast tomorrow. Or, you could add more water to that the liquid volume is back to 1 cup and make a batch of pressure cooked steamed rice (1 minute on HIGH, 10 minutes natural release).

Post-Pandemic Pantry Management, pt 2

How you store food items makes a big difference in how long the food can be safely stored.

Apples can stay firm for about a week without refrigeration (in the Pacific Northwest); but as it gets warmer and there is less humidity in the air, the apples will start to wrinkle and become not as firm. They'll start to rot after four weeks at room temperature without refrigeration during winter/spring, maybe faster during summer/fall. They can last a lot longer when kept in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for a month or more; but not longer than six months. 

During each year of the pandemic, I dehydrated about 40 pounds of organic apples, some with the skin on and some with the skin peeled off. That is another way to create a sugar-free snack with a very long shelf life. I would recommend that you eat these dehydrated apple rings before the following year; but the apple rings are still edible, they're not as tasty as when they came out of the dehydrator.

Is that too long? Hahaha. By then, the apples, if you got them on sale and have not done anything with them, you could still chop them up and cut off the bad parts and use the fruit in a pie or bread or make applesauce.

Fresh lemons and limes can be stored in lidded Cambro containers (food-safe plastic). Costco now carries the 2-quart Cambro containers ($15/4 containers) which is a great price; considering that I used to buy these containers from a restaurant supply store. I generally put as many as the container can hold, up to three lemons and/or limes a quart-sized container. If you want, you can also add a clean folded paper towel at the bottom to absorb any condensation. Stored in the refrigerator, these fresh fruits can keep for about a month without wrinkling or drying out.

Fresh eggs:

Always refrigerated. I reorganized the shelves in my refrigerator so that these egg flats can fit on the top shelf. However, I also buy 4 dozen organic eggs at a time (from Costco) and for me, it's about a month's worth of eggs.

Butter/Ghee:

I typically store 4-8 pounds of butter; half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator. And generally, one stick of butter sits on a dish in my cupboards at room temperature regardless of the season we're in. Except for summer when the cupboard temperature rises above 80 F, then it gets stored in the refrigerator.

I keep ghee in a mason jar at room temp.

Washington State's apple season

This would likely explain why my franken apple tree (has 5 varieties of apples grafted to its trunk) only produces 1-2 apple varieties per growing season. Each major branch represents a type of apple. Though, the identification tags have fallen off the tree. At least one of the varieties is golden delicious.

Washington State's apple season typically runs from August to November, with the peak harvest occurring in September and October. The harvest dates vary depending on the apple variety, with some varieties ripening earlier or later than others.

By apple variety:

• August: Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp, and Pink Lady

• September: Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Jonathan

• October: Braeburn, Cripps Pink, and Mutsu

• November: Empire, Rome, and Stayman Winesap

Post-Pandemic Pantry Management, pt 1

The pandemic and risk of COVID-19 certainly changed how I shopped for groceries and how often I shopped at which stores for particular food items: 

• seasonal organic fruits and vegetables (Chuck's produce)

• organic dairy and snacks (Trader Joe's)

• bulk pantry items such as rolled oats, toilet paper, fresh eggs, fish, or rice (Costco)

• meat, packaged food, canned goods (Fred Meyers)

Pre-pandemic (2019 and earlier) Chuck's, Trader Joe's, and Fred Meyers' groceries were purchased on an as-needed basis, mostly weekly visits. Costco purchases are at most once per month, or less. During the pandemic where protective masks were mandatory for retail stores, Chuck's, Trader Joe's, and Costco stores were visted once per month or less; and Fred Meyers became my go-to store for every day fresh produce and groceries. 

Today in 2023, with inflation and supply chain issues affecting food prices, I am visiting Fred Meyers less than once per month, but about once per month for the other stores. Primarily, this is because Fred Meyers does not carry a decent selection of organic anything (meat, eggs, fruits, or vegetables) at a reasonable price.

The quality of fresh items such as fruit, vegetables, and dairy became an issue during and immediately after the pandemic from both Chuck's Produce and Trader Joe's. Refrigerated dairy spoiled faster than the "use by" date and fresh vegetables rotted quicker. Don't even get me started on apples. The apples from Chuck's Produce, especially when purchased off-season, were all rotten inside. The apples certainly still looked pretty on the outside, but once you cut into the apple, the apple flesh looked as though it had been in cold storage for a year. It was awful.

New rules to prevent food waste:

• purchase enough fresh fruit or vegetable for a week

• eat or cook the recently purchased vegetables within a week of purchase

• always check expiration dates on packaged dairy (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt)

• seasonal produce from farmed produce (e.g., apples from WA state, pears from OR state, oranges from CA, grapefruit from TX/FL) - only buy these fruits when in the producing state's season

• you'll get mixed results between sweet and terrible when buying "seasonal" fruit that comes from outside the US (e.g., grapes/peaches/nectarines/plums from Mexico; kiwi fruit from Australia/New Zealand)

• bananas are an exception since they ripen after harvest

Almond Pulau Rice

This takes ordinary steamed (baked or pressure cooked) rice up to the next level. I used 1/2 jasmine rice and 1/2 basmati rice; only because I am eating through the jasmine rice faster than the basmati. I subbed raw almonds for raw cashews because that's what I had on hand. Also, Indian pulau and rice pilaf are essentially the same thing, except with regional aromatic differences.

Aromatics

1 bay leaf

1/2 c fresh mint leaves (can also use a few dried mint leaves)

1 slice of fresh ginger

2 whole cloves

2 green cardamom pods

1/2 tsp cumin seeds (or 1/4 tsp ground cumin)

20 raw cashews or raw almonds

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

Rice

1 c (200 gm) basmati or jasmine rice, washed and drained

1 c water

Directions

For a rice cooker:

In a separate frying pan, toast the spices (cloves, cumin, ginger, bay leaf) and raw almonds in 1 tbsp of olive oil or butter. Add rice and water to rice cooker, add aromatics. 

For a Ninja Foodi:

Add oil to insert bowl and select the sauté function. Add aromatics and almonds. Toast for a couple minutes before adding the rice and water. Set NF "high" pressure and the timer for 2 minutes. Natural release for 10 minutes.

Note: Placing the whole aromatics in the center on top of the rice will make it easier to remove the spices before serving the rice.

This recipe is adapted from the book Vegetarian Indian Cooking with your Instant Pot.

Homemade Buckwheat Noodles

How to make soba noodles from scratch. I looked on YouTube for the buckwheat to flour ratio, and the first recommended video was on Japanese 101 cooking. In the video, the demonstrator cooks up a package of soba noodles and proceeds to plate it with other ingredients. This is not what homemade noodles means! So anyways. This recipe ratio is from Food52, and I must say, if you sub the spelt flour for all purpose flour, the taste is.. hideous. I mean, it doesn't taste like any commercially made soba noodle I ever ate at home or at a restaurant. I don't quite know what spelt flour tastes like; though I've heard it is a healthier alternative to all purpose white flour; even though spelt is just hulled wheat berries. It makes me wonder what the actual difference is between "white" unbromated/unbleached flour and spelt flour since both are using hulled wheat. Maybe it's a marketing thing. It simply boggles the mind how we lie to ourselves about what is and isn't healthy for food ingredients. Though, I've read that while spelt is a wheat, it's a cousin of modern wheat and more nutritious. I digress. This post isn't about the nuances of wheat plants.

For the noodles...

1 c buckwheat flour + more for rolling
1/2 c kamut or white spelt flour (can substitute AP flour)

up to 150 ml hot water

For my climate (Pacific Northwest) and season (late summer), there is some humidity in the air and I used 120 ml of water in this batch which made 10.78 oz of fresh noodles.

Directions

In a bowl, mix the two flours together and gradually add hot water until a shaggy/rough dough forms. Sprinkle buckwheat flour onto your work surface and knead the dough until all the flour is combined (no dry spots remain) and the dough ball is smooth.

Once you have rolled the dough out into a big rectangle. Sprinkle the dough with buckwheat flour, then fold the top third down and the bottom third up, like you are folding a 3-page brochure. You can trim the edges if straight edges are important to your noodle making but it is not necessary since they come out terribly shaped no matter how you cut these with a chef knife. 

With your hands, shape it into a rectangular blob and start rolling it out until it is 1/4 a centimeter thick. Tessie Woo cuts her noodles thicker for her dish on Food52, but I'm sure you've had noodles that you've either bought at the store or had at a restaurant. Cut the noodles to that imaginary width. For me, I aimed for 1/4 to 1/2 centimeter wide, which is still pretty wide for a soba noodle.

Toss the cut noodles in buckwheat flour to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add a large handful of noodles to the water. Boil for 1-2 minutes, then drain and rinse in cold water or let drain/cool in an ice water bath.

End notes:

I think I'll stick to making ramen noodles from scratch. While they take longer to prep, they don't have the grainy "I'm eating sand" texture that buckwheat noodles have.

Kitchen Notes: Yeast, Part II

The type of bread yeast used depends marginally on the type of breads you are making and how controlled the environment is for bread making (bread machine vs oven). If you're not an avid baker, you are not going to know the difference between the types of yeast nor should you (there really is no difference, unless you need the yeast to ferment faster in a shorter span of time). Is it a noticeable difference in taste? Hmm, that'd be like comparing the taste differences in same flavor carbonated water of different brands where the mineral ratio of different water sources and final product pH are what makes the taste difference.

Did you know that the company that makes SAF also makes Red Star?

Types of Bread Yeast

• Active Dry Yeast (what I use in all these recipes) - requires warm water to activate
• Instant Yeast - does not need to be proofed before using; also known as Fast-Rising, Rapid-Rise, Quick Rise, or Bread Machine Yeast
• Fresh Yeast (this is exceptionally hard to find in the US) - same organism as the active dry or instant yeast and packaged in small bars or cake form; short shelf life
• Osmotolerant Yeast - specific to sweet doughs, such as cinnamon rolls, danishes, or brioche rolls; SAF Gold Instant Yeast

What about Nutritional Yeast? Well sorry, you can't use it like the aforementioned bread yeasts. This yeast is for eating. It's high in B-vitamins and is sometimes used as a flavor replacement for dairy cheese in some vegan recipes. It brings a savory taste to some dishes, such as popcorn-style (breaded and deep fried) cauliflower florets.

Brands of Yeast Commonly Found in the US:

• Red Star
• SAF
• Fleischmann's (typically in 3-pouch packets and 4-oz jars)

Additives in Yeast (and what they do):

• alpha-amylase (food enzyme that helps in processing starch)
• ascorbic acid (weakens the gluten in longer fermented breads, helps the dough relax and increases a faster rise); you'll know if a miller has added it to the flour because it'll be listed on the ingredient label (required by law)
• calcium sulphate (yeast food; also, this is Plaster of Paris)
• sorbitan monostearate (abbreviation SMS), or Span 60, is an emulsifier esterified from sorbitol and stearic acid with the European food additive

Examples of Yeast with Additives:

• SAF Red Instant Yeast: Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid
• Hovis Yeast: Dried Yeast (92%),Stabiliser (Calcium Sulphate),Emulsifier (Sorbitan Monostearate),Flour Treatment Agents (Ascorbic Acid, Enzyme (Alpha Amylase)
• Red Star Organic Instant Dry Yeast: Organic Yeast, Ascorbic Acid. Contains: wheat
• SAF Gold Label instant yeast: Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), sorbitan monostearate, ascorbic acid

Uses:

• SAF Gold Instant Yeast for doughs with 10% or more by weight added sugar
• SAF Red Instant Yeast or Red Star Instant Dry Yeast for regular "lean" breads, less than 5% sugar
• Fresh yeast for a long, slow rising time

Alternatives to Commercial Bread Yeast:

• Barm, a beer-making byproduct from the 1st or 2nd fermentation stage that's usually tossed by the brewer; used extensively in pre-19th century cooking; learn how to do this at The Fresh Loaf, My Love of Baking, or Joe Pastry
• Wild Yeast, probably not going to happen in an urban environment or if you live in a downtown metropolitan area; useful in making a brewing starter, sourdough starter, or homemade natural sodas
• Make a wild yeast starter using juniper berries
• Fruits with wild yeast: juniper berries, elderberries, wild grapes, blueberries, figs, Oregon grape berries
• Substitution: per 1 tsp yeast = 0.5 tsp lemon juice and 0.5 tsp baking soda -- this produces a chemical reaction (carbon dioxide) in the dough that causes the bread to rise. You can use this in sweet breads (not offals) such as banana bread or a quick bread.

Kitchen Notes: Yeast, Part I - Active Dry Yeast

You may have noticed this year that not only did 5, 10, and 20 lb bags of all purpose flour (white and wheat, bleached and unbleached) flew off the grocery store, restaurant grocery outlet, and big box store shelves (e.g., Walmart, Costco), but also all types of bread yeast all but disappeared in the last three months. The last time I saw a brick of Red Star Yeast (active dry) at Costco was back in March. It reappeared briefly on Costco.com in late August this year, but has since then disappeared and never actually showed up on the shelves at my local Costco. Forget supermarkets, they have been out of yeast for months. I guess people are just going to be stuck with non-yeast recipes to use with all that flour. It isn't a bad thing. Recipes such as pancakes, crepes, scones, crackers, some flatbreads (spring onion pancakes), tortillas, cookies, etc., don't use yeast at all.

A reasonably priced 1.5 lb to 2.0 lb brick should cost you roughly $5 at Costco (versus $7-10 for that 4-oz jar at the grocery store), or between $7-10/brick at an online retailer who sells to consumers, such as King Arthur Flour; though, you might not appreciate the minimum $69 order at KAF to qualify for free shipping. And, forget about ordering via Amazon. Who knows how old that stuff is or how it was stored.

Stop buying those 3-pocket packages and 4 oz jars of yeast from the grocery store. If you bake a lot of yeasted items (or brew a lot of ginger beer), you're better off cost-wise to buy a yeast brick. It's called a brick because of how the yeast is packaged. It's vacuum sealed and has a dry shelf life of 2 years.. or longer after you open it if you do the following:

• store in a freezer-safe freezer jar in the freezer (bring up to room temp before using)
• store in a glass jar in the refrigerator, use as needed

I am still using active dry yeast that I bought that had originally expired (according to its manufacturing label) in 2016. But, while I'm an avid baker, I do not make yeasted bread items on a regular basis.

You might have noticed that hardly anyone touched the gluten-free flours or already made gluten-free breads at both the grocery and big box supermarkets, or the bulk retailers. That is probably because all that gluten-free nonsense is just that.. marketing nonsense. Though, it's estimated that there are 18 million Americans with gluten sensitivity.

Zucchini Noodles with Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Earlier in the year, large shrimp was on sale for an abnormally low price ($5.99/lb) at the supermarket. It is likely due to excess supply and schools/restaurants were closed for the past two or three months. I procured several pounds of this and froze half of it in manageable serving sizes.

For this dish, I enough for one serving. Though in retrospect, I feel like I just made a shrimp dish with a side of zucchini noodles. I'm using the Veggetti spiralizer which is essentially a pencil sharpener for carrots, zucchini, and smaller squash.

The Foodening Blog: Zucchini Noodles with Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Ingredients

8 oz raw shrimp (per person), peeled and deveined
1-2 raw zucchini per person
1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine, chicken broth, or dry vermouth
dash of red pepper flakes, to taste
sea salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Prepare the zucchini by trimming the ends off the squash and using either a mandoline or a spiralizer to transform the zucchini into thin noodle-like strips.

Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add shrimp in a single layer, season with sea salt and black pepper. Add garlic. Cook for one minute on each side. Remove shrimp from pan to a plate.

Deglaze the pan by adding vermouth. Add red pepper flakes, vermouth, unsalted butter, and lemon juice. Let simmer for about a minute more.

(optional) Add zucchini noodles to the pan and stir until coated in the sauce.

Remove from heat. Stir in the shrimp. Transfer all to a plate or bowl and serve.

Sweet Cornbread

Font type seems to have vanished from the new Blogger interface and instead, this crappy default Times New Roman is what looks to be in the composer with the Font selector drop-down nowhere in sight or settings. Hmm..

As we all spend way too much time at home this year with 24x7 access to the pantry, you should be able to cycle through the ingredients in a more timely manner. Except, not in the last sweep of my pantry where I found several items past their "best buy" or "use by" dates. I'm not sure if a dry good like cornmeal goes bad if its stored in an air tight container. Yellow cornmeal used is from 2018, hope it's still good.

The Foodening Blog - Sweet Cornbread in a 9" round tin

Ingredients

1 c all-purpose flour

1 c yellow cornmeal

2/3 c organic granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt 

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 whole egg

1 c organic whole milk

1/3 c neutral-tasting vegetable oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F

Prepare a 9" round cake pan. I used butter, but any vegetable oil will work.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt. and baking powder. Add egg, milk and oil. Mix until well combined.

Pour into prepared cake pan.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the bread. Slice into eighths.

Ninja Foodi: Moroccan Beef Stew

The recipe ratio is adapted from the April 2020 issue of Men's Health, which calls for lamb stew meat, and this recipe substitutes beef for lamb. While I really enjoy grilled lamb for the occasional treat, lamb meat is price prohibitive at nearly $12/lb at my local grocery store w/ a butcher counter. And, after wondering what made this beef stew "Moroccan", I added some dried apricots and raisins it as well. While it is peculiar that there's no added salt, there is salt in some of the canned goods used to make the stew. For the green olives, I am using green castelvetrano olives. At my local grocery store chain, it sells under the HemisFares label in a 4.2 oz glass jar. It has a radically different taste and texture than the generic brand canned green olives that one would use in a salad or cocktail.

TheFoodening Blog - Moroccan Beef Stew

Ingredients

1 lb beef stew meat, cubed
1 15-oz can organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can organic diced tomatoes
4 organic carrots, diced
4 oz pitted green olives, drained and rinsed
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
7 dried apricot slices
2 tbsp raisins
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp Better than Bouillon Beef Flavor + 2 cups of water
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander

Directions

Having a Ninja Foodi means that I can start with a lack of planning and preparation to make most beef-based recipes. I imagine that if I had fresh stew meat on hand, I would skip this step and go straight to browning the meat in the Foodi on its sauté setting. In the event that you are starting from frozen beef stew meat. Here's what you do:

In the Foodi, add to the cooking pot, 1 lb frozen stew meat plus 1 cup of water. Pressure cook on high for 1 minute and quick release. This is my half cooked and still raw but thawed method.

Remove the lid and add the rest of the ingredients.

Pressure cook for 25 minutes on high with a natural release.

Once you remove the lid, discard the cinnamon stick. Serve hot.

Sweet Potato Roti (flatbread)

I've been putting this recipe off for years and have only just gotten around to making it. It has a relatively short prep time, including pressure steaming the sweet potato (not the garnet yam, but the Japanese sweet potato with white flesh). The original recipe ratio comes from Lathi's Kitchen blog. The flatbread tasted a little doughy because I dredged the dough balls in some flour before rolling it out. It helped the dough from sticking to the silicone mat and rolling pin. The ground cumin adds much flavor to what would taste really bland otherwise. Lathi's recipe calls for 1.5 cups of wheat flour, I used half that amount including what I used to dust the dough with before rolling out. It could very well be due to the fact that it's been raining and indoor humidity is higher than normal.

TheFoodening Blog - Sweet Potato Roti / Flatbread

Ingredients

1 medium sweet potato, steamed and mashed
up to 1 c all purpose unbleached wheat flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cumin (optional)

Directions

If you have a Ninja Foodi, peel and cut the sweet potato into chunks. Use the crisper rack instead of the elevated stainless steel rack. Add 1 cup of water to the pot and add the sweet potato to the rack. Pressure cook on high for 6 minutes, then quick release.

I think this is how I ended up with a lower-moisture mashed sweet potato than if I were to use a slower, more traditional stove method of steaming a root vegetable.

In a food processor, pulse the cooked sweet potato until a paste forms. Gradually add the flour, about 1/4 cup at a time. Pulse until a soft and slightly sticky dough forms.

Use a dough cutter and split the dough ball into 3/4" to 1" chunks. Roll dough bits into balls.

On a lightly floured silicone mat, roll out dough balls to 5" wide and thin pancakes.

Heat a cast iron skillet or nonstick skillet over medium heat. You can add a neutral or high heat oil (such as coconut oil) to the pan if you are concerned about the first couple of roti sticking to the pan. The use of oil is optional.

This cooks quickly, so as soon as one side puffs up. Turn the roti over with a spatula and fry the other side.

TheFoodening Blog - Sweet potato roti cooking in a nonstick skillet

Ninja Foodi: Beef Stew with Lentils and Potatoes

This is a non-tomato-based beef stew. It is also a two-part recipe. I cooked the lentils separately then added them to the stew ingredients when cooking the beef. I also used two types of potatoes for this because that's what I had on hand: one gold potato and one sweet potato.

TheFoodening Blog: beef stew with lentils

For the lentils:

1/2 c dry green lentils
1 c Trader Joe's miso broth

Ninja Foodi: cook lentils on Hi for 20 minutes.

For the stew:

1 lb beef stew meat, cut into 1" pieces
2 organic celery ribs, diced
8 oz white mushrooms, cleaned
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 gold potato, diced
1 sweet potato (white flesh), diced
1 bay leaf, optional
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste

Ninja Foodi: cook stew on Hi for 25 minutes, natural release. Serve hot with bread or crackers.

Ninja Foodi Recipes Made in January/February

What recipes make it into being written up as a post? Dishes that were good enough to make me want to cook up again and aren't so simplistic as to be a direct copy from the instruction manual, such as making perfectly cooked jasmine rice (seriously, it's just a cup of water and a cup of rice, pressure cooked for 2 minutes with a 10 minute natural release). The end goal of this is more for me than you, dear reader. I hate blogs with ads with a passion. I don't want you to have a lower quality experience of reading a recipe blog chock full of ads. Frankly, blogs that autorun videos and popup ads are a turnoff to me. This is my online cookbook and I don't want to look at ads when I check it for recipe ratios. Also, I have skimmed through a lot of Instant Pot cookbooks. I even checked out a number of analog books from the public library and what is most annoying is that a third of each book contained recipes published by the manufacturer. How original. Anyways. Here's what I made in the Foodi.

Success!

• taro root dessert soup, pressure cooked
• dry, not soaked azuki beans, pressure cooked (taro + azuki beans + tapioca pearls = nice dessert)
• dehydrated wild pacific shrimp
• bbq baked beans
• frozen black sesame tan yuan, pressure cooked
• roasted marinated mushrooms
• reheat already cooked rice
• pork neck bones, for stock
• crispy bacon from raw

!Fail

• King Arthur fruitcake
• whole "baked" Japanese sweet potato
• chocolate pots de creme (overcooked)
• frozen ribeye steak (PC & AF), too raw using NF directions

Apricot Oatcakes

Makes: 8 oatcakes

Ingredients

3 c old-fashioned rolled oats
2 c all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 egg white
1/3 c plain yogurt
1/2 c sugar
12 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c dried apricots, chopped
1/4 c roasted nuts, chopped (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 F

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Pulse oats in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add flour, baking powder, and pulse to combine.

In a bowl, whisk egg white until frothy, then add yogurt, sugar, honey, and vanilla extract.

Add oat mixture to wet ingredients. Add apricots and/or optional nuts.

Divide into 8 portions. Roll into balls and flatten slightly on the baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy warm or cold.

Ninja Foodi Dehydrated: Wild Pacific Shrimp

Ninja Foodi dehydrated umami bombs.. dried shrimp. In my first batch, 10 oz cooked = 2 oz dehydrated. Except, by doing it myself, there are no preservatives (other than salt) and no food dyes. A win! Dried shrimp 🦐 are a key component of Chinese cuisine, such as turnip cake. This package of wild pacific shrimp comes pre-cooked and salted. Found it in the freezer aisle at my local Costco. At $15 per 2 lb package, I can probably make 6 oz of dried shrimp from this. It is on par with the cost for dried shrimp that you can get from an Asian grocery store. If only I knew how to catch shrimp in the wild. Also, WA state pink shrimp is harvested at the far northern side of the state in the San Juan de Fuca strait in the Puget Sound area. If I retired some day to one of the cities in the northern part of the Olympic Peninsula, I could take advantage of the annual shellfish/seaweed license.


Ingredients
wild shrimp, cooked
Directions
Temperature: 135 F




Time: 7 hours + more (if the shrimp isn't completely dried out)

The Foodening Blog - Ninja Foodi Dehydrated Pacific Shrimp