Meat and Potatoes: Their Greatest Hits, Disc 1

I haven't mentioned my Grandma, Marguerite, much on this blog yet, but she was the central inspiration for my other blog, Vintage Kitchen Recipes.  She was a wonderful person, and an exceptional cook.  She and my Grandpa, Otto, were a great team in the kitchen, and I think they loved nothing more than feeding us and my uncle's family a big meal on Sundays.  Almost every weekend, and certainly every holiday, we were there, and they were feeding us.  Playing with my cousins at their house and then everyone sitting around the dining room table enjoying whatever delicious meal they had created are my very best childhood memories.  Boy, do I miss those 2 people.  (Sniff.)

There are many foods I associate with my Grandma.  She made a fantastic lasagna, which I'm sure incorporated her amazing homemade Italian tomato sauce.  (See my other blog for a recipe for the sauce!)  My dad still dreams of her pork roast, and I haven't been able to successfully replicate that one yet, despite some valiant efforts.  There was a cake she often made for our birthdays that was like a Boston Cream Pie that was amazing, and I could go on and on.  But if there was a gathering where friends or my mom's side of the family would be there and they knew Marguerite was coming, the one thing they were all going to request was BRISKET.  She was truly the brisket queen.  Once she was gone, (and she was mentally gone even before she was gone physically) I took up the brisket banner and carried it on in her place.  She wrote the recipe out for me by hand (what a treasure that is), and I've made it often, relishing a chance to read her handwriting and relive such wonderful memories.  Mine tastes just like hers, so it makes me feel like a bit of her lives on through my coking.  The brisket queen is dead; long live the brisket queen.

And then came my Instant Pot.  And it dawned on me that that sucker was MADE for brisket.  A tough cut that needs a ton of cooking to be enjoyable?  Not anymore, sucker.  Move over, oven.  Get lost, roasting pan.  This was, in fact, the day that I fell in love with my Instant Pot.  I had no idea what I was making for dinner.  It was already after noon when I found myself digging through the freezer, looking for inspiration.  I found the chunk of brisket and thought, what the hell.  I'll take a stab at converting Grandma's recipe, which is a multi day ordeal, what with the marinading, cooking, cooling, slicing, rewarming, etc.  Turns out I did it in 90 minutes total, and it was every bit as good as hers.  I was almost as impressed with myself as I was with the pot.

Like a lot of things I make, this is very versatile.  You can put it on a crusty roll to make sandwiches out of it.  You could opt for shredding the meat more as opposed to slicing and eat it over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.  My Grandma's original recipe had mushrooms, but we've been over how those make me want to vomit, so naturally I omit them.  But, hey, if they don't make you want to vomit, you could toss some of those in there.  You could roast some baby potatoes and carrots and eat it almost like a pot roast.  The sauce is more thin like a jus than it is thick like a gravy, but it would still work.  Go nuts.  Make extra if you want; it's fabulous left over.  Speaking of that gravy...good golly.  I'm not sure I can even think of a superlative that is appropriate.  I could just drink it with a straw.

I'm a huge fan of the traditional meat and potatoes pairing.  Tonight when I made the brisket, I took the opportunity to use an America's Test Kitchen recipe for smashed potatoes as a basis for a pressure cooker version of smashed potatoes.  Super easy, super delicious, and perfect with the brisket.  Hopefully they don't sue my ass for posting it.

Since I got mine, I've often wondered what my Grandma would've made of this electric pressure cooker trend.  She wasn't much into new fangled things.  One year my dad got her a cordless phone as a gift so that she could take the phone out with her when she worked in the yard.  It was back in the days of having to pull out the antenna when you answered.  The image of her attempting to use it with the antenna pointing down as she yelled into the earpiece (and the laughter that ensued from the rest of us) will forever be burned into my brain.  So I have a feeling all the buttons and the beeping and such would've been a bit much for her.  But I have no doubt she would be super proud of the meals I've churned out of mine.  But then again, she was proud of everything I did.  One year, as I tried fruitlessly to think of a good idea of something to give her for Christmas, my mom said, "You could wrap a turd in foil and she'd say, 'well, you made it yourself!'"


Pressure Cooker Brisket with Onion Gravy

I used my 6 quart Instant Pot.  This makes a lot of gravy, so you could do a bigger chunk of meat if you want, but cut it into several pieces to keep the cooking time the same.  Either that or bump your cooking time up.  The 2 1/2 lb. brisket will easily feed 4 to 6 people.  This is really good leftover, too.  

2 1/2 lb. (give or take) brisket, cut in half
Accent flavor enhancer
Meat tenderizer powder
Granulated garlic
2 tsp. oil
1/2 large onion, sliced
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup beef broth
1 can beef gravy
1 pkg. dry onion soup mix
1/2 cup Italian dressing

Sprinkle the brisket all over with Accent, meat tenderizer, and garlic.  No need to measure; just sprinkle liberally.  Mix the canned gravy, onion soup mix, and dressing together; set aside.

Heat the oil in the pressure cooker on saute mode.  Once the oil is hot, add the onions and cook until browned and some fond is on the bottom of the pot, about 5 to 8 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute.  Pour in the broth and scrape up the fond from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.  Add the brisket pieces to the pot and pour in the gravy mixture.  Put the lid on and turn the pot on to manual set for 75 minutes.  After the cooking time is over, allow a 10 minute natural pressure release, and then remove the brisket from the gravy.  Let the brisket rest for a few minutes before slicing.  Return to the gravy and serve.  The meat may shred apart as opposed to making nice slices unless you let it sit and cool for a while.  Or, if you really want nice, neat slices, I suggest you cook it a day before you need it and refrigerate it overnight.  Then, to reheat it, just put the gravy and the sliced meat in a sauce pan and heat it on the stove top.

Pressure Cooker Smashed Potatoes

I used my 6 quart Instant Pot.  I just want to say again in hopes that they don't take me to court for posting this, I based this recipe very closely on an America's Test Kitchen recipe.  I'm not going to do what a certain popular food blogger does and just barely tweak a recipe and then pass it off as if it's mine.  I won't name names. :)

2 1/2 to 3 lbs. small red potatoes, washed but not peeled, and make sure you cut out any bad spots
1 cup water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. salt
1 stick of butter
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, well softened
3 Tbs. fresh chives, chopped

Turn the pressure cooker on to saute mode and add the stick of butter.  Melt the butter completely and then pour it into a large serving bowl.  You can rinse out the pressure cooker pot if you want, or don't.  Whatevs.  Add the water, bay leaf, and salt to the pot.  Insert the trivet and pile all of the potatoes on top.  Lock on the lid and set to manual for 12 minutes.  While the potatoes are cooking, add the cream cheese to the serving bowl with the melted butter and do your best to whisk it together.  It may look a little curdled or separated, and that's ok.  When the cooking time is up, do a quick pressure release.

Remove the potatoes and trivet from the pressure cooker.  Scoop out 1/4 cup of the hot water from the bottom of the pressure cooker pot and add it to the butter and cream cheese mixture in the serving bowl (make sure you don't grab the bay leaf in your scoop o' water).  Whisk again until the mixture is about the consistency of runny sour cream.  Whisk in the chives.  Add the hot potatoes to the serving bowl with the cream cheese mixture and smash each potato with a stiff wooden spoon.  Smash as much or as little as you want.  I like to leave some really big chunks of potato intact.  Add pepper and adjust the salt to taste.  Stir until well combined.

I Love Things that Start with the Word "Lazy"

Recently there was a really great sale on the Instant Pot on Amazon, and I personally had a part in talking somewhere around 7 people into buying one.  A couple of us who use ours a lot teamed up to deliver an irrefutable list of talking points on why they are so indispensable to the modern home cook.  I'm starting to feel like the big wigs at the Instant Pot company owe us some manner of commission or stock option, because let me tell you, we can take the most hesitant potential consumer, wow her with promises of quick meals and homemade stock, and have that girl guzzling the figurative pressure cooker Kool-Aid within several days of getting her pot out of the box.  Welcome to the cult, bitches.

So, here's the thing:  I'm lazy about a great many things, but almost never is one of those things cooking.  Cooking is my greatest passion and joy.  It's where I love to put my energy.  My laziness comes across in other places like, say, my appearance.  Putting on makeup?  Styling my hair?  That sounds like a lot of effort.  But even I need quick meals that require a minimal amount of effort.  I just still want them to taste homemade.  Recently I had plans to make Mark Bittman's excellent Vegetables au Vin with Coq from his Food Matters Cookbook.  I had yet to start paring up the green beans or anything when all of a sudden it was 4:45.  I was home alone with 2 kids, one of which says, "mommy, watch this!" every time she even sticks her tongue out, and one of which is 1 year old and is the biggest shit disturber on the planet.  I was NOT getting that meal made and I knew it.  So now it's approaching 5:00 and I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner.  So I took the chicken that I had thawed to be the coq in my coq au vin and just threw it in the pressure cooker with some broth, BBQ rub, and sauce.  I got out my second Instant Pot and made pressure cooker macaroni and cheese (which is so amazingly good and easy it's *criminal,* you guys), added a veggie, and voila!  Dinner was made.  But the key is, it didn't taste like something prepackaged and full of mystery ingredients.  It didn't taste like a frozen bag of something that was cooked in the microwave.  It tasted like something I made.  Because it was!  Just because you need your meal to be ready fast doesn't mean it can't be great.  And, sometimes I need to remind myself, just because you love to cook, doesn't mean you have to invest a ton of effort to end up with something tasty.  We can all be lazy once in a while.

Lazy (Wo)Man's BBQ Pulled Chicken

Use a store bought BBQ rub if you want to be truly lazy.  I used my 6 quart Instant Pot and have doubled this recipe with great success.  If you want to double, keep the cooking time the same but double everything else.  I've used combinations of dark and white meat and just used the same cooking time for all of them and they've come out great.  I don't think there's any need to be too finicky with the cooking time because there's plenty of liquid to keep things from drying out.  If you're using breasts and they're huge (heh heh, huge breasts...) cut them into 2 or 3 smaller pieces.

1/2 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thighs, or tenderloins
1 Tbs. BBQ dry rub--my recipe follows, if you're not feeling *too* lazy
1/4 to 1/2 cup BBQ sauce

PAY ATTENTION CLASS, this is difficult.  Pour the broth into the pressure cooker.  Add the chicken and sprinkle on the BBQ rub.  Pour in the BBQ sauce.  Put the lid on and set to manual for 10 minutes, then allow a natural pressure release for 10 minutes.  Remove the chicken and turn the pot to sauté to reduce the sauce a bit.  Shred the chicken while the sauce is simmering and add it back once the sauce is at the consistency you like.  Listen to your children complain that they don't like BBQ sauce.  Try not to be too mean when you tell them you guess they're just going to be hungry, then eat their portion with gusto because it's so damn good.  It's like I've got a flippin' crystal ball, right?

All Purpose BBQ Dry Rub

This recipe makes way more than you need for just the BBQ chicken, but it keeps almost forever and is good on any kind of meat, so I like to make a lot and just keep it in an airtight container.  This is a great time to use good quality spices, when you're *really* going to taste them.  I love Penzey's spices.  Their Mexican oregano, smoked paprika, and chili powder are all dynamite.  And if you happen to have smoked salt, YES.

2 Tbs. smoked paprika
2 Tbs. sweet paprika
2 Tbs. chili powder
2 Tbs. cumin
3 Tbs. dark brown sugar
2 Tbs. salt
1 Tbs. oregano
1 Tbs. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. cayenne pepper

Well Kids, When a Banh Mi and a French Dip Sandwich Love Each Other Very Much....

Do you ever wonder where people get their ideas for new recipes?  I do.  Like those recipe videos your friends are always sharing on Facebook--I saw one once where they made monkey bread out of canned cinnamon rolls.  The one my mom made when I was growing up used canned biscuits.  But instead, this video showed the obligatory mysterious pair of hands doing the slow motion pull-apart of gooey cinnamon roll bites, icing dripping down the sides.  Why didn't I think of that???  Why haven't I done it yet???  Why am I not doing it RIGHT NOW????  I didn't think of it because creativity is not my thing.  The only way I'm going to get a good idea is to steal it from someone else.  Which brings me to this sandwich.

My family just came back from a trip to Hawaii.  Most of my vacations result in at least one amazing food memory; the one that sticks out in my mind above all others.  The authentic boeuf bourguignon I had in France the first time I went there, for example, or the picnic lunch of fresh baguette and cider that my husband accidentally sprayed all over me when I went back years later, the amazing fried chicken with a drizzle of honey from the Bryce Canyon Lodge, the freshly caught and prepared shrimp I had on the beach in Honduras after an ocean kayaking trip......the list goes on and on.  I'm fortunate to have seen, and eaten in, some amazing places.  This trip we cooked at our rental home for almost every meal because, in case you've been living under a rock and don't know it, Hawaii is really damned expensive.  The days were dwindling down and, despite how super cool it was to watch my brother and husband hack open a fresh coconut right out of the backyard while my daughter squealed with delight, no food memory in regards to an actual meal had yet been made.  Luckily, at what was quite literally the final hour of our trip, before heading to the airport, I had a sandwich so good, I resolved to go home and recreate it.  I've been home less than a week and I already gave it a whirl.  I guess you could say it made an impression.  I will give credit where it is due, to the amazing chef at Uncle Bo's in Haleiwa, Hawaii on the north shore of Oahu.  I believe he called his version the Mekong Dip.  It was so amazingly good.  It seemed to have a bit of a Vietnamese flair to it (although our server told me the chef is from Laos, so it's probably more likely that I don't understand the subtle differences between Vietnamese and Laotian food).  My version ended up tasting more Thai-ish, which is unsurprising to me, given that I am a fanatic for Thai food.  The overall concept, however, is still the one I stole from Uncle Bo, which can be stated as the following:  what if a banh mi did it with a french dip, and they had little bastard sandwich babies?

I was totally winging it, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of my first effort.  The "dip" part of mine tastes a lot like tom kha gai soup, in my opinion.  I'm sure mine is never going to be as good as Uncle Bo's, so I'ma name mine the Tom Kha Gai Dip.  If you want to get tipsy, pair it with an Incline Cider Company Lemongrass Cider, or a Kona Brewing Company Lemongrass Luau.  Yay for stealing other people's creativity!  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy 4 cans of cinnamon rolls.

Pressure Cooker Tom Kha Gai Dip

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 cans unsweetened coconut milk, divided
2 Tbs. prepared red curry paste
2 tsp. brown sugar
2 kaffir lime leaves, dried
a generous handful of fresh cilantro--leave the stems attached so it's easier to fish out after cooking
1 Tbs. fish sauce
1 lime, juiced
salt to taste (I used a little less than 1/2 tsp.)

4 crusty rolls

Possible Garnishes

sliced fresh tomato, cucumber, yellow or white onion, jalapeno, red bell pepper
fresh bean sprouts
fresh cilantro or basil

Whisk together one can of the coconut milk with the curry paste and brown sugar.  Add the chicken to the pressure cooker, along with the cilantro and lime leaves.  Pour in the coconut milk / curry paste mixture.  Put the lid on the cooker and set to manual for 10 minutes.  Allow a natural pressure release for 10 minutes and then release any remaining pressure and open the pot.  Use tongs to remove the chicken and set it aside.  Remove the cilantro and kaffir lime leaves and discard them.  Turn the pot to saute and whisk in the remaining can of coconut milk and fish sauce.  You just need the sauce to get hot again after adding the room temperature can of coconut milk; it won't take long.  While the sauce is reheating, shred the chicken.  After the sauce is hot, remove it from the heat and stir in the lime juice and salt to taste.  Build the sandwiches using a good hard roll with a nice, crusty exterior that won't immediately fall apart when you dip it.  Pile on some chicken and your garnishes of choice.  Serve with a little bowl of the coconut curry sauce, dip, and nosh.