The Yum Yum Factor

If Betty Draper had an Instant Pot, she probably would have drank less, cooked more and still would have been left with plenty of time and energy to keep her hair on point. Luckily, we can all get ourselves an electric pressure cooker and join the cult although my hair has never looked as good as Betty's. I have been working for a while to adapt my pressure cooker chili into a vegetarian, three bean chili so that I can have a nice, thick chili that has all the same flavours as my meat filled chili. Because there is no evaporation, it is easy to end up with a watery chili that is bland and lacklustre. Then, you must consider the fact that cooking dry beans in the pressure cooker with an acidic ingredient, like tomatoes, can result in unevenly cooked beans that can take up to four times longer to cook. Now, if I have all the time in the world, I am fine with that and just cook for longer with the tomato but this particular recipe was going to be the main dish featured in my u...

Think that making black bean with dried beans is only for the weekend, when you can do an overnight soak of the beans and put aside a few hours for the soup to simmer away on the stove? Think again! Now, thanks to the pressure cooker, we can have delicious, wholesome black beans on a busy weeknight. From start to finish, it takes just under an hour, no soaking required. I also skipped the ham hock and grabbed a 1 lb ham steak (they often even have a bit of bone in there) so I can get the smoky ham flavour without the fuss and bother of locating a ham hock at 5pm. I adore this sofrito from Serious Eats - I cut the recipe in half and love the addition of some orange juice to brighten it up, allowing me to use it raw, as a salsa as well as a base for other dishes, like the rice that I serve with the beans. The beans are also great in burritos, as a soup if you add more broth or water when you reheat them or alongside eggs for breakfast. makes approx 10 cups of beans ...

I love me some Mexican style, soupy beans but I can never decide between Charros (named after the Mexican cowboys of Norther Mexico) and Frijoles Borrachos (literally translates to drunken beans), which are almost the same thing except for the addition of beer. Both versions are also wildly popular in Texas and New Mexico and because I can't choose which dish I like better I just mashed both recipes together to come up with this. I am not sure that this is 100% authentic and I know that you can ask ten Mexican grandmas for their recipe and you will get ten different answers so I still sleep well at night. You can serve these as a side dish, over rice for dinner, with fried eggs for the best hangover breakfast you will ever have or add more chicken stock and turn them into soup. I don't make these all that often because if done on the stove top, this dish takes hours to cook if you are using dried beans but this coming Saturday, I am cooking up a Mexican Feast at ...

I love me some Mexican style, soupy beans but I can never decide between Charros (named after the Mexican cowboys of Norther Mexico) and Frijoles Borrachos (literally translates to drunken beans), which are almost the same thing except for the addition of beer. Both versions are also wildly popular in Texas and New Mexico and because I can't choose which dish I like better I just mashed both recipes together to come up with this. I am not sure that this is 100% authentic and I know that you can ask ten Mexican grandmas for their recipe and you will get ten different answers so I still sleep well at night. You can serve these as a side dish, over rice for dinner, with fried eggs for the best hangover breakfast you will ever have or add more chicken stock and turn them into soup. I don't make these all that often because if done on the stove top, this dish takes hours to cook if you are using dried beans but this coming Saturday, I am cooking up a Mexican Feast at T...

I have been having more adventures with my Instant Pot this week - this chili, a tomato based meat sauce for pasta and another chicken and lentil stew. Adapting my recipes to work in the pressure cooker requires a bit of math, a lot of research, a few hail Marys while throwing salt over both shoulders and an Om Shanti Shanti just to make sure my bases are covered, but I am finally starting to get it. I keep reading that pressure cooking is not intuitive cooking and I couldn't agree more so this is the one cooking method that is going to require constant reference to cooking charts until you really get the hang of it, no matter how accomplished you are in the kitchen. Pressure cooking has been a humbling experience but an exciting one at the same time, kind of like my reoccurring dream where I get married to Ryan Gosling. Okay, regarding the half hour chili in the title. If you use canned beans, you could cook it for more like between 15 and 20 minutes at high pressure so y...

It's time to revamp an old recipe using a version of my new beloved blend and extend method but this time I am trying it with ground pork. I am happy to report that it works just as beautifully with ground piggy as it does with ground beef and I am plan to blend and extend all of my ground pork recipes over the winter. This is really just a solid, basic chili recipe using ground pork instead of ground beef and you could totally replace the pork with beef without losing anything. For that matter, you could sub in ground poultry as well. Chili with Pork and Mushrooms 350g ground lean pork 150 g mushrooms of your choice, ground in a food processor until crumbly glug of olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 1 stalk celery, small dice 2 cups tomato puree 3/4 cup chicken stock (or beer but I didn't have any) 1 540 ml can black beans, drained and rinsed 1 cup tomatillo salsa ( I use the PC brand but use what you have) salt and peppe...

Don't you just love mustard? I have at least a dozen types of mustard in my fridge at any given time and I have also recently started dabbling in the making of my own mustard, which is pretty damned exiting for me. I don't get out much. Anyway, the #1 staple in my fridge is always Maille old style whole grain mustard. I usually have their honey mustard as well but the giant jar of grainy mustard is alway in there. I use it in sauces like this one, in vinaigrettes, on meats, with grilled sausages and in sandwiches. The boys prefer plain old yellow mustard on their sandwiches because they are freaks but not me. When Maille asked for Canadian bloggers to be Maille Mustard Mavericks I was all over that like a Toronto racoon on a green bin the day after Christmas. I almost felt guilty grabbing a free jar of grainy mustard because it's not a new product for me at all but who can say no to a free jar of something they already love? The Maille store ...

Well, as much as I want to pretend it's not happening, the cold weather is closing in which means it's probably time for my weekly Friday, So It Must Be Soup feature. It's actually Monday but I also have to post this as my submission to Gastropost this week as my ode to the fall bounty so let's just pretend it's Friday and you go make this soup. Kale. We all love kale and I thank my lucky stars every day that I own a son who loves kale. He lets me put kale in his smoothies, he likes it in soups, he likes it sauteed with garlic and olive oil, he likes it in stews and he even likes kale chips. I don't know what sort of evil person I was in a past life that has made it possible to own a kid who loves food this much, but I choose to not ask too many questions and just keep cooking. I make white bean, kale and sausage soup fairly often but I always use those little canned Italian white beans and italian sausage. Since I had all afternoon to make this soup I ...