The Foodening Blog

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

Ninja Foodi Recipes Made in December

For whatever reason, I started logging what I made in the Foodi. What has turned into a daily breakfast item are soft boiled eggs. After figuring out the right combination of time and which pressure setting, these are extremely easy to make. A lot better than the randomness by stovetop method.

The inaugural dish I tried in the Foodi was crispy fried BBQ chicken wings using raw, frozen chicken wings. Initially, it looked fantastic. However, the chicken wings were perfectly cooked at the pressure cooker stage. The amount of time that the Foodi recommends for crisping it up with the Crisper lid (air fryer) is way too long and the end result. I have divided this list into successes and failures.

Success!

jasmine rice, pressure cooked
soft boiled eggs, pressure cooked
Tamari Garlic Roasted Almonds, air fryer
Beef stew w/ Yukon potatoes, pressure cooked
hashbrown patties, air fryer
herbed lamb shoulder, air fryer
whole roasted herb chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
dehydrated apple chips, air fryer/dehydrate setting
quinoa chocolate cake muffins from box mix
whole roasted salt and pepper chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
chicken stock w/ bay leaf, garlic, carrots, and celery from chicken bones
pork bone broth using pork neck bones
whole roasted garlic, air fryer
reheated lasagna, air fryer