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.