Cultural Appropriation: It's What's For Dinner

A few years ago, I asked for an Ancestry.com membership for Christmas.  It didn't take too long before I realized that it wasn't very smart for me to ask for such a thing at that point in my life, when I had a very young child who never slept or sat still, but for a few months I did my best to enjoy it in what little free time I had.  I hope to pick up where I left off with it some day, but in the minimal research I was able to do then, I definitely learned something about myself.  I am white, y'all.  I'm the whitest white girl on the planet.  I'm whiter than rice on a paper plate.  At least that appeared to be the implication from what I've found so far.  I ordered Ancestry DNA kits for my dad and I a few days ago, and I'm really hopeful there will be some kind of bombshell surprise ethnicity in there, but that's probably unlikely, given what recent immigrants most of my ancestors are.  I will admit to being a little disappointed at being so monochromatic.  While I'm definitely proud of the people I descend from, all white is just kind of boring.

So who is this white girl to teach anyone to make Indian food?  Who is she to make Indian butter chicken and serve it over basmati pilaf with naan?  Who does she think she is stocking her pantry with garam masala and turmeric?  What an elitist bitch.

Ok, I'll make you a compromise.  I'll let someone who actually knows Indian food school you on the butter chicken, because hers is amazing and needs no improvement (https://twosleevers.com/now-later-butter-chicken-pressure-cooker/), and I'll handle the basmati.  Ask your friend, Trader Joe, to make the naan for you.  Some day, when I'm feeling like usurping someone's culture again, I'll teach you how to make pressure cooker chicken tikka masala to go with your basmati.  Mmmm....diversity is delicious.

Pressure Cooker Basmati Pilaf

I like my rice to have some chew, so this is not super soft when it's cooked.  I think you'd probably need to add a bit more water and maybe 1 more minute of cook time to get a softer texture.  But that is a guess on my part.

4 tsp. coconut oil
3 whole cloves
1 stick of cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 of a large onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp. salt

Turn the pressure cooker to saute mode and add the coconut oil.  Once the oil is melted and hot, add the cloves and cinnamon stick.  Cook for about 2 minutes, until the spices are sizzling.  Add the cardamom and cumin and cook another minute or so.  Add the onion and cook until it is softened, another 2 or 3 minutes.  Stir in the basmati and cook for 2 or 3 more minutes in the hot oil, stirring frequently.  Add the water and salt and give it a good stir.  Lock on the lid and turn the pot to manual on high pressure and set for 4 minutes.  Once the cook time is over, do a quick pressure release.  Serve immediately and try not to bite into those whole cloves. :)

Winter Is Coming. No, really. It is.

When I say winter is coming, it's not a Game of Thrones reference.  I've never even seen that show because I suspect it has way too much gratuitous blood and boobs to interest me.  No, I mean winter really is just around the corner.  Are you prepared?  Are you stocked up on freeze-proof washer fluid and pet safe sidewalk salt?  Do you have Pinterest-worthy crafts on hand for the inevitable cabin fever that will overcome the kids when school gets called off for half an inch of snow for 3 days in a row?  Have you pulled all the tank tops and maxi dresses out of your closet, to be replaced by sweaters and wellies for sloshing around in half melted snow?  Ugh.  What a wretched, soul-sucking season.  Thank goodness for warm bowls of homemade soup.

But perhaps you never learned to make homemade soup.  Perhaps it all just seemed like too much work, what with the long simmering and occasional stirring and all.  Well, have I got great news for you!  Turns out your pressure cooker makes throwing together a pot of hearty, steaming hot broccoli cheese soup so easy, it's even less work than driving your ass to Panera to go through the drive-thru.  Especially those of you who, like me, have young children that you'd have to bring with you if you left the house in search of soup.  I mean, think about it.  Do you want to remind everyone to go potty and/or change diapers, ask them 800 times to please, for the love of all that is holy, just pick a flippin' pair of socks and shoes already and put them on, get screamed at when you turn off Bubble Guppies before the episode is over, and then finally wrestle everyone into their carseats?  Or do you want to cut up an onion and a few crowns of broccoli and then run your pressure cooker for 8 minutes?  Because that would literally be the choice I would be facing.

When I first started imagining how this soup would come together, it seemed pretty straightforward in my head.  I read a few recipes online to get some ideas and do you know one version called for 2 cups of half and half and 1 measly cup of broccoli?  No kidding.  I submit to that person that their recipe ought to be called cream of half and half soup with broccoli garnish.  But I digress.   I imagined my version to be thickened with a flour and butter roux.  But then I remembered all of the warnings I've read about how you never EVER thicken anything you make in the pressure cooker until after it's been cooked.  I'm not sure what happens if you thicken first, but, given the dire warnings I've seen, it apparently involves some sort of opening of the gates of hell from which chaos and evil rain down upon your children and your children's children.  Or maybe the pot never comes to pressure; I don't know.  At any rate, the advice was duly noted, and that's why I went for a non-traditional cornstarch thickener at the end.  I briefly considered still making a roux in a separate skillet like I do for my potato soup, but this was super easy and gave the desired endpoint with very little fuss.  "Very little fuss" is the key phrase for this recipe in general.  Just the way Instant Potheads like it.      

There now.  We're all one step closer to being ready for winter.

Pressure Cooker Broccoli Cheese Soup

I used my 6 qt Instant Pot and this made a nice quantity for 4 people.  I used fresh broccoli, but I'm guessing frozen would work out fine with possibly a small sacrifice in flavor.  I also used homemade stock because I had homemade veggie stock in the freezer that I had made in the Instant Pot previously, but you can certainly use canned broth.  Thanks to my friend Sue, I've recently become a fan of Better than Bouillon instead of canned broth.  That would be a good choice, too.  Chicken broth is fine if you don't need your soup to be vegetarian.  For the milk, I used evaporated because I like that it doesn't break when you stir it into the hot soup.  You can use 2% or whole milk instead if you want, but you always run a little risk of it looking curdled.

2 Tbs. butter
1 small onion, diced
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 to 2 lbs. broccoli, cut into large florets and stems cut into 1/2" slices
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 cups water
8 oz. mild cheddar cheese, grated  (I prefer to buy a block and grate it myself for better melting)
8 oz. cream cheese, cubed  (that's 1 whole block)
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 tsp. cornstarch

Turn the pot to saute and add the butter.  When the butter is melted, add the onion and the 1/2 tsp. salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add the broccoli, stock, and water.  Put the lid on the pot and cook on manual for 8 minutes.  Do a quick pressure release and then turn the pot back to saute.  Stir in the cheeses a little at a time. Keep stirring until they are completely melted.  Whisk together the cornstarch and milk until smooth.  Slowly stir in the milk mixture and continue stirring until the soup thickens.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

If a Lasagna Falls Into a Pressure Cooker and No One is There to Put it in Layers, is it Still a Lasagna?

You would never know it if you walked into my house now, but I like things to be very neat and tidy.  I hate clutter.  And messes.  I like everything in its place, and I love organization.  Then I became a mother to 2 young children who hate to sleep.  Now my house, and my person, perpetually look as though they have just been ransacked.  I'm too tired to try to tame the shitstorm that develops every day, so I just try to ride it out and make sure my kids are still alive at the end of the day.  I've had to reach a place where I can at least tolerate, if not appreciate, a little chaos and messiness.

This is even evident in my cooking.  Back in the days of entertaining friends as a young, childless wife, if I had been asked to make a lasagna, I would've made a long simmered Bolognese sauce and lovingly layered it with a béchamel sauce and perfectly par-cooked lasagna noodles.  It would've been a thing of beauty.  But a lot of things in my life are a lot less beautiful now.  (Not my kids though; they're flipping adorable.)  So have I come to tolerate enough chaos and clutter that I can abide by a pile of lasagna components in a big sloppy mess on my plate?  Heck yeah, I can.  Well rested people can boil lasagna noodles and patiently layer them into a masterpiece while sipping a fine Chianti.  The rest of us can break uncooked noodles into pieces and chuck them into a pressure cooker while we refill a plastic cup of boxed wine from Target.  When your life is messy, I think it's totally cool if your food is, too.

Deconstructed Pressure Cooker Lasagna

I used my 8 quart Instant Pot and made a lot of this because I was feeding 4 adults plus wanting leftovers for lunches.  So this makes a lot, as written.  To use a 6 quart cooker, cut the ingredients in half (including the water) but keep the cooking time the same.  If you use Italian sausage, expect that you may need to drain the grease after you cook the meat.  That can be slightly annoying, so if that step bothers you, just use a very lean ground beef and you shouldn't need to drain it, but the flavor is obviously a bit more interesting with the sausage in there.  FYI, I think this would be great with a bunch of curly leaf spinach thrown in after cooking and wilted down briefly.  Definitely going to try that next time.

1 Tbs. oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 yellow and 1 red bell pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic
1 lb. lean ground beef  (or 2 lbs. if you're not using Italian sausage)
1 lb. Italian sausage  (optional)
28 oz. diced tomatoes seasoned with basil, oregano, and garlic (do not drain)
24 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce of your choosing
4 cups water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 lb. lasagna noodles, uncooked and broken into approx. 1" to 2" pieces
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese

Turn the pressure cooker on saute mode and add the oil.  Once the oil is very hot, add the onion and bell peppers and cook about 5 minutes until the onions are softened.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add the meat and cook until no longer pink.  Drain away the grease, if needed.  Add in the diced tomatoes and their juice, spaghetti sauce, water, salt, and uncooked lasagna noodles.  Give it a good stir so that all the noodles aren't sitting in a big pile on top of each other or they may stick together.  I like to try to get them as submerged in the liquid as possible.  Lock on the lid and change from saute mode to manual and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes, then do a quick pressure release.

Stir in the Parmesan and mozzarella cheese until well distributed and melted.  Add salt to taste, dollop spoonfuls of the ricotta on top, and serve.