The Yum Yum Factor

Some days I feel lazy. I don't want to haul out my spice bins, measure out a whack of them to make my own curry but I am starving and I just want to eat ASAP. I might be out of homemade chicken stock too so I will often just grab a box of my emergency stash of chicken broth (low sodium Campbell's for the most part) from the pantry and bag of curry powder. In the days of yore, this soup would have taken far too long for a last minute meal, requiring over an hour to simmer, but with a pressure cooker, suddenly it's doable for lunch. From the very start of chopping to the minute you lift the lid and ladle the soup into your bowl, you will squeak in just under the 30 minute mark, tops, under 25 minutes if you rush it with a ten minute NPR. My regular Indian Split Pea Soup takes an hour and a half to cook  Today, I was lucky to find a leek, a half of a giant head of cauliflower to use in place of potato so that my soup can have that thick heartiness that potato gives...

What to do with a 1 lb bag of gorgeous, organic baby red potatoes? I have been eyeing this recipe for Baby Potato Roast  on Relish the Bite forever and so I used it as my inspiration for this dish. Many of the spices she uses will not be familiar or easy to find for many people and I already have my own spices that I like to use so I made quite a few changes. Also, I thought some beluga lentils would be nice so they could get a bit crispy and add some protein so those were added to the mix as well but this delicious recipe was the inspiration for my own Indian Spiced Baby Potatoes. Earth Fresh Foods asked me if I would come up with a recipe using their Organic Red Baby Potatoes if they sent me a bag, so, of course, I said yes. Earth Fresh are Canadian producers of premium potatoes, carrots and onions but they specialize in potatoes, sourcing their products in 9 Provinces and 38 States. These are some nice potatoes and you can find them at Longos and Metro. Because t...

The Contest Once again, the time comes in a young girl's life where she has to come up with a recipe for the annual Lentil's Canada recipe contest. This year, the theme is "Star of the Show" and all of the entrants must make a short video to go with their recipe, so here is mine   - please feel free to go and watch it, like it, share it using the hashtag #LoveLentils . You can see all of the great entries  here  2016 has been declared the International Year of the Pulse by the UN and the fact that Canada is the world's largest producer and exporter of lentils was not lost on me. Even though I cook with them often anyway, I am making a concerted effort to make sure they are on the menu at least a couple times a week this winter. Last year, my Dulce De Lentil Ice Cream took first place in the Dessert Catagory, was featured in the Ebook along with my Spicy Caramel Corn With Crispy Lentils , a runner up in the freestyle catagory. The year before, my C...

Okay, maybe it didn't make me a better lover but it certainly didn't make me any worse! Last week I made this chicken stew with beluga lentils   and it was so delicious and so easy that I am now on a mission to see how many variations I can come up with. I want to keep it from being boring and maintain the versatility that enables a dish like this to be added to the regular rotation. As I said before, this recipe is more of a template than a buttoned down recipe, allowing you to throw in what you have - the main ingredients being chicken and either brown, green or black lentils - the softer red and yellow will fall apart and turn into mush. I don't think I mentioned it before, but the basic idea for combining lentils and chicken thighs came from  Serious Eats . It was one of the first recipes I read when I was first researching ideas for my new pressure cooker. last week we had chicken thighs, fennel and beluga lentils because that is what was in my fridge Dec...

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...