Paula Deen's Twice Baked Potatoes

This is an incredibly delicious recipe that is made so much easier with the InstantPot! Great for family gatherings and special meals!



Paula Deen's Twice Baked Potato Casserole

iNGREDIENTS

8 medium baking potatoes, about 4 pounds

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 pint sour cream

2 cups ( ½ pound) shredded sharp cheddar cheese (divided use)

2 cloves garlic, minced or 1/4 tsp garlic powder

1½ teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon pepper

¼ cup chopped chives, for garnish (Optional)

6 slices bacon, cooked crisp, drained and crumbled, for garnish

Cook potatoes in IP. Click here to see how.

Peel and mash potatoes in large bowl with mixer, potato masher or back of fork. Add cream cheese, butter, sour cream and 1 cup of cheddar. Stir well. Add garlic, salt and pepper, and stir again.

Spray a 13x9-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place potato mixture in dish, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate casserole until ready to bake.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 F, remove plastic wrap and bake casserole 30 to 35 minutes until hot. Sprinkle remaining 1 cup cheddar over casserole and return to oven for about 5 minutes, until cheese melts. Garnish with chopped chives and crumbled bacon before serving.

Vegetable Beef-not so pretty-Soup

Busy working on Christmas craft projects today, 4 o'clock hit and I was needing to get supper going. Not having prepared well, I started digging through the pantry, fridge and freezer to see what I could throw together in my nifty-difty InstantPot. Thankfully, the thrown together and prayed over conglomeration had everyone at the table saying "This is good!". Phew! Thank you Lord!
I thought I'd post it just in case you all found yourself in the same predicament and happen to have the same or similar ingredients on hand... or if you wanted a K-family approved Vegetable Beef (venison in this case) soup.
Here's what I had:

• 1 lb of very frozen ground venison (beef would obviously work too)
• 1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (stewed would work as well)
• 8 oz bag of frozen peas
• 8 oz bag of frozen corn (mixed veggies works well too)
• 1 cup Macaroni Noodles (not needed. You could use chopped potatoes as well)
• I sprinkled some salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder and cumin on the meat while I was "sauteing" that in the pot- I'll get to that, and then again into the pot before cooking.
• 2 cups broth from cooking hamburger/venison, or water if you don't use this method
• 2 cups chicken bone broth that I had in the freezer from another IP recipe. You can use water instead though.

Here's what I did:

• Cooked frozen venison on rack with two cups of hot water on "Manual" for 10 minutes. (I think the hot water brought it to pressure quicker. I'll keep experimenting.) If your meat is not frozen, you can just skip the pressure cooking and just saute it with seasonings (or not is fine too)
• Quick release- Remove meat that wasn't yet cooked through.
• Pour juice into another dish, place meat back into pot and "Saute" with seasonings added.
• When meat is browned, add all other ingredients, including that juice you just poured into another dish, and stir.
• Close lid-Valve to "Sealing"-Manual-10 minutes.
• Quick release was fine if needed on this.

We sprinkled cheese on ours and ate it with saltines. 

Any left overs can be frozen for later.

Yum, warming and healthy! Win-win!

I hope your family enjoys this as much as we did!

Cheesecakes in the InstantPot

My mom has been having fun with her InstantPot and has been making cheesecakes. She brought one to a family gathering yesterday and it was SO yummy that I have to share the link! I've been wanting to make one but haven't had time yet; now I know where to look when I'm ready.
Cheesecakes in the IP

Pepe Le Pew

Did you notice on those Instant Pot Facebook sites how people are asking for help in naming or choosing names for their Instant Pot and their second or third pots.  I am not sure if my excitement or thankfulness for this time saving device has hit the point in me searching through baby name books but I can say that after a strong Texas chili and 2 chicken dishes my pot, or silicone seal, has definitely earned the name of Pepe La Pew.

I have seen several posts on this definite drawback for those wanting to do a sweet and savory dish back to back and many have invested in a separate ring for those two foods (myself included).  I also read that Instant Pot was making, not yet released, color coded silicone rings for our convenience.  I have also read many posts about cleaning the ring to remove the smell, baking soda/vinegar scrubs, apple cider vinegar soaks, etc. The manual itself says a good clean in in the dishwasher does the trick.  As that is the only one I have tried, I can say for sure that it did not remove the odor in my ring.  I read in a comment of someone using a steam cycle and lemons to clean their valves so I wondered if  lemon essential oil would have any effect on my silicone ring.  And lo and behold it did!  Here is what I did.

2 cups of water in the bottom of the cooking pot with 5 drops of lemon essential oil, making sure it is food grade, or maybe they all are.  I don't know that answer so make sure to ask your oil distributor.  I set the pot to the steam cycle for 5 minutes and did a quick valve release.  Depending on how stinky your stink bug is, you may have to repeat. I really hope you have the same success I did and that it continues to work for both of us!

InstantPot CookBooks

On Amazon you can find many InstantPot cookbooks for 99 cents in the Kindle download. If you have "KindleUnlimited" then they're free.
If you don't have a Kindle, that's fine, you can download the Kindle App (if it isn't already on your electronic device) and view it from there; even on an iPad!
Here is a link for anyone interested.
Instant Pot Cook Book 

Garlic Chicken with Potatoes and Green Beans

Here's my favorite go-to meal that my family loves to eat as much as I love to cook!
Layer in order:
1 Cup of water in bottom of IP.
5 potatoes cleaned and cut (I cut into large chunks to save time)
Bag of frozen green beans
2 garlic cloves crushed or chopped into small pieces. or Garlic powder
1/4 cup (half a stick) of butter cut into small slices and spread on top
Chicken (I used a whole bag of frozen drumsticks here but have used other pieces (breasts and thighs) and any type works just as well.
Salt and Pepper sprinkled on top
Any other seasonings you'd like to add like Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme...
Lock lid- Valve to "Sealing"-"Manual" or "Poultry"- 30 minutes- walk away.
You can either do Quick Release or Natural Release on this one.
Notes: Serves 8. It takes approx 30 minutes to come to pressure because of all the frozen foods. You can decrease amounts of the potatoes or beans to make more room for more chicken or vice versa.
Enjoy!

 

 

Easy Peasy Pork Chops

I bought some pork chops on sale to have on hand for whenever I could use them. Well, tonight I had a few minutes to get something ready before running off to basketball practice. After doing a very quick scan online, I landed on BBQ Pork chops. This is what I did: BBQ sauce to cover bottom of pot, layer of pork chops and repeat making sure the top meat layer is covered in sauce. Plug in, lid on, valve sealed, "Manual" at 30 minutes; ran off with the kids, got extremely exhausted and famished playing basketball for 1 1/2 hours- well, I didn't play that whole time, but my kids did- drove home to have perfectly done pork chops staying warm and waiting for us. Hubby was happy, kids were happy, I was happy. Another reason I'm SO thankful for my InstantPot (and pork chops on sale and a whole bottle of BBQ sauce in the fridge and easy recipes like this AND times together with family, whether we're playing ball together or sitting around the table together!)