Instapot Spaghetti Puttanesca

It was a busy day yesterday! On our way home from our morning walk we got a FaceTime call from our friends in Wisconsin; at the same time the building engineer was making rounds to replace the HVAC filter in our unit; we tuned in to a zoom condo board meeting in the evening while at the same time we tried an instapot recipe. These days, just having one item to attend to is too much. We finally had all the ingredients for the spaghetti puttanesca recipe from the Milk Street Fast and Slow cookbook that our son and daughter in law sent to us along with the instapot. We organized all the ingredients and my husband prepared the garlic, cilantro, olives, whole peeled tomatoes, and capers. We were making half the called for ingredients because 4-6 servings would be a bit much for the two of us. So I changed the amounts on the recipe because I knew I would forget. When we sautéed the oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes with the capers and olives, there was a burst of an overwhelming unbelievable “pleasant” smell that required us to open the windows, doors, turn on the vent and put on the fans to keep us from choking!! It was difficult to breathe! Someone should alert you about that! It took a while to get the sensation out of our system. When we added the tomatoes and juice and water it finally got better. Once we finished preparing the dinner we toasted some naan garlic bread. Together with a salad, the spaghetti was actually very good - but very “spicy” hot. That required a small container of yogurt to dial down the heat. It was an interesting experiment to say the least. Would we make it again? After all that the Cucino and Amore basilica Italian pasta sauce we usually make is just a lot easier. 

Instapot Persian Barley Lentil Soup With Spinach

Unexpectedly we received a surprise in the mail - an instapot with two cookbooks. We aren’t in any hurry - especially lately - to cook things in shorter time. But it would be an interesting experiment. We sorted through the recipes and found a few, but we didn’t have several of the ingredients. We finally got what we needed with the latest grocery delivery and prepared to make the Persian barley lentil soup with spinach last week. My husband is the primary cook in our house and doesn’t follow recipes - he just magically puts things together and dinner is always delicious. Using limes and lime zest is unusual for us. We followed all the instructions and started first with sautéing the onions, carrots and garlic, then added the liquids. The soup was cooked under high pressure for fifteen minutes - which ended up being not quite enough. We put the pot on the stove and cooked the soup another 15 minutes. When it was done, the chopped spinach and cilantro were added. Along side the soup was some yogurt to add in as desired. It was very good - so much so that we made another batch yesterday. However, the results were not as spectacular. There was too much lime this time. Maybe it was the fact that we had already made it once and should have tried something else. In the end it was indeed an interesting process. Maybe spaghetti will be next. 

Instapot and Cookbooks

Out of the blue we received two unexpected packages in the mail. It was an instapot and a pot cover sent to us from our son and daughter in law. They love to cook and thought this might be a gadget we might like given all the in home cooking going on these days. It was a thoughtful idea. The next day we received two cookbooks that contain many instapot recipes. One seemed a bit more like our usual taste while the other was more involved. Neither of them had recipes we had all the ingredients for. But we did have rice. So we decided it would be a good idea to try out the pot and see what it does for rice. I remember having a crock pot many years ago. It was good for putting something in the pot in the morning and coming home after work to a cooked meal. Since we are retired and aren’t going anywhere, having something that cooks things faster hardly matters, but was fun to see what it could do. So we made the rice under pressure, released the steam - of which there is considerable - and tried the end result. It turned out more like rice at Chinese restaurants - kinda sticky. We are more used to persian long grain rice and the Uncle Ben flavored options. We have looked through the recipes and have found a few that we would like to try. We ordered up the ingredients in our last grocery delivery and hope to try one of the recipes soon. I’d rather have a full meal cooked rather than just rice. My husband is really the chef in the house and never follows recipes. I on the other hand follow every specific step. So the instapot is more up my line than his. We are looking forward to the next challenge.