Pressure Cooker Braised Red Cabbage

Those of us who were raised in the 1970’s remember the infamous Brady Bunch episode where, trying to imitate Humphrey Bogart, Peter Brady repeatedly said (misspellings intended), “Pork Chops and Apple Shauce, that’s schwell.” I’m playing with a new pork chop recipe tonight and despite the expectation of mashed potatoes and, yes, apple sauce, there is no way I’ll be serving that boring combination!

I tossed around ideas for different types of cold coleslaw, carrot slaw and even considered going the sauerkraut route, but none of those seemed hearty enough to accompany the Smoky Ancho Cherry Pork Chops I have in mind. I grabbed some red cabbage, Granny Smith apples, aged balsamic vinegar and started tossing things into the pressure cooker.

Pressure Cooker Braised Red Cabbage

1 Medium Head Red Cabbage (chopped)
2 Large Granny Smith Apples (chopped)
2 TBLS Coconut Oil
2 TBLS Balsamic Vinegar
4 TBLS Honey
2/3 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
2/3 Cup Water
3 tsp Allspice
Salt & Pepper to Taste
1/4 Cup Golden Raisins (Optional)

With lid open, pre-heat the pressure cooker on the “Brown” setting
Add the coconut oil and chopped apple and stir about 1 minute
Add half the cabbage and stir to coat with the oil
Sprinkle the Allspice over the contents of the pan
Stir in the remaining cabbage
Stir in the 2 TBLS balsamic vinegar
Add the water and apple cider vinegar to combine
If you are adding the raisins, do so now
Close and lock the lid
Set pressure cooker to 194° (Medium-High)
When it comes up to temperature, cook the cabbage for 10 minutes
At the end of the cycle, unplug and allow to sit for 10 minutes
Release rest of pressure and remove cabbage to a serving bowl
Adjust sweetness with more honey or allspice as needed

Can be eaten hot or cold.

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Creamy Poblano Chicken Soup

chickenpoblanosoup After another Southern California winter week with temperatures over 80 degrees, I was looking for any excuse to make soup. Today the Santa Ana Winds blew in and dropped the temperature to a “Brisk” 69 degrees so I rushed to get the pressure cooker and Vitamix working so I could enjoy my favorite cool night meal:

Creamy Poblano Chicken Soup

2 Roasted Poblano Peppers
1 Roasted Sweet Potato (or Yam)
1 Roasted Small Yellow Onion
1 TBLS Olive Oil
32 oz Chicken Stock (I use Emeril’s)
4-5 Cloves Garlic Finely Chopped
8 oz Cream Cheese (Room Temperature)
1 lb diced chicken breast
2 Cups Shredded Colby & Monterey Jack Cheese
Freshly Ground Sea Salt & Pepper to taste

Roast the sweet potato in the pressure cooker for 15 minutes on high. Remove and set aside.
Using the Brown function on the pressure cooker, roast the Poblano peppers, the quartered onion and the garlic in the olive oil for 10 minutes after the cooker comes up to temperature. Remove from pan when done.
Add the chicken to the pressure cooker pan and again set it to the Brown function. Cook the chicken for about 10 minutes, or until just cooked through.
Remove the seeds and stems from the peppers.
Add peppers, onion, sweet potato, garlic, 1 Cup of the broth, and cream cheese to the Vitamix container. Process on low to medium speed until well combined and smooth.
Add the chicken to the Vitamix container and process on the low setting until chicken shreds and is no longer in chunks.
Pour contents of Vitamix container back into the pressure cooker pan. Add remaining 3 cups of stock, the shredded cheese. Stir until well combined. Taste and adjust the seasoning if desired.
Close the lid of the pressure cooker and select the Stew/Soup function. After the machine reaches cooking temperature, cook for 10 minutes.
When cooking is complete, release pressure, stir and serve soup while hot.

Serve with buttered toasted sourdough croutons, a dollop of sour cream and sliced avocado if desired.

**Vegetarian Option: Don’t add the chicken if you would like to serve this as a side or keep it meat-free.

A New Kitchen Toy

pressurecooker It seems I am always getting some kind of new kitchen gadget. Something as small as a new pair of nesting measuring cups can make my day. So imagine the glee I felt today when I opened the box from Amazon containing my new T-Fal 6 Quart Pressure Cooker!

To be honest, traditional pressure cookers have always scared me a bit. I watched my grandma and mother-in-law fearlessly use them with ease and skill, but the unpredictable nature of the steam behind the pressure made me steer away from any recipes that even mentioned the need for pressure cooking.

After seeing more and more positive media about the joys of cooking in “no time” using the new electric pressure cookers with pre-programmed settings for as many as 25 different foods, the ability to steam, cook, simmer, an even slow cook in one compact unit, I took the plunge and ordered one for myself.

I also bought the two top rated pressure cooker cook books I could find on Amazon.com so I’d be ready to prepare a gourmet meal upon my return from vacation this week. So what was my pressure cooker’s virginity breaking first meal? I chickened out of doing anything that I might result in me wasting a lot of ingredients and made a big batch of Quinoa!

Combine:

1 3/4 Cups Quinoa
2 1/2 Cups Chicken Broth (If I don’t have any canned broth on hand, I make my broth using 3 cups water boiled with 3 Wyler’s Herbed Chicken Bouillon Cubes)
Pinch of Freshly Ground Sea Salt
1 TBLS Butter

Put pressure cooking pan/bowl back into the machine and secure the lid as per your instructions. Turn your pressure cooker on and, if you have a setting for rice, select the rice setting and hit start. If you do not have a rice setting, you can manually set your machine to cook for 9 minutes on medium then hit start and let the machine get warmed up to do its job.

When cooking has finished, follow your machine’s instructions for releasing steam/ returning to normal pressure before opening the lid. My machine tells me to press the steam release button on the handle and wait until no more steam is escaping before turning the handle and opening the lid.

quinoa Remove the quinoa to a bowl and fluff to separate the grains. If you aren’t eating all of the quinoa prepared, store in a sealed container and refrigerate to eat throughout the week. Quinoa is fun because you can eat it as a side dish plain/with cheese/ or with vegetables, add some veggies to it as a salad, or add meat/chicken/fish/shellfish as a light main dish.

Are you on Facebook? You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. I may not write a blog post every day, but there are daily updates to my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood

Time to Break Out the Fat Pants!

champagne We are officially one week away from the start of “Holiday Season.”

Thanksgiving kicks off 5-6 weeks of excess in all things food and drink related: Happy Hours, Office Parties, Open Houses, Secular Celebrations, End of Year and New Year’s Day blowouts that inevitably result in most people’s pants feeling a bit too snug.

I wouldn’t want to keep anyone, least of all myself, from indulging to the limits of their pants (and beyond), so it’s officially also the kickoff for all of the recipes for the rich, gooey, fattening, but oh so yummy foods I’ll be serving at celebrations from now through the end of the year.

Since Thanksgiving is the first holiday where I’ll be hosting a crowd, I’ll start with the side dish I prepare instead of the candied yams of my youth.

oldschoolcandiedyams You know the ones am talking about: A can or two of yam chunks mixed with an orange juice, brown sugar type concoction, chunks of butter, chopped pecans, and piled high with mini-marshmallows then baked until they are bubbly and the marshmallows are a delightful shade of brown.

I’m certainly not knocking this old school family treat, but I like the opportunity the availability of fresh ingredients gives me to keep the flavor while cutting some of the fat and calories.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Gingersnap Streusel

6 Large Sweet Potatoes (or Yams)
1/2 Cup Firmly Packed Light Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Butter (Melted)
1/2 Cup Half & Half or Heavy Cream
2 Large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 to 2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (to taste)

Streusel

2 TBLS All Purpose Flour
1/4 Cup Cold Butter, Cut into Pieces
32 Coarsely Crushed Gingersnap Cookies (Not too fine)
Additional 1/4 Cup Butter (Melted)

sweet-potatoes-oh-1677905-l Peel sweet potatoes, cut into slices and cook in boiling water to cover over medium heat 25 – 30 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and put into large bowl then mash (leave some chunks).

Combine mashed sweet potato, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and next 5 ingredients in a mixing bowl; beat at medium speed with an electric mixer. Spoon into a greased 2 1/2-quart or 13″ x 9″ baking dish.

To make the streusel: Combine 1/2 cup brown sugar and flour. Cut in 1/4 cup cold butter with a pastry blender (or two forks at opposite directions) until crumbly. Stir in crushed gingersnaps. Sprinkle streusel over sweet potatoes. Drizzle the additional ¼ cup butter over the top of the streusel. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 25 – 30 minutes or until streusel is lightly browned.

Make Ahead: Prepare sweet potato filling, and spoon into a greased 2 1/2-quart microwave-safe dish. Cover and chill overnight. Microwave on HIGH 10 minutes or until hot. Prepare streusel, and sprinkle over filling. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 20 minutes or until streusel is lightly browned.

My family become such big fans of this recipe that I get asked, even on non-holidays, to bring it to dinner. 🙂 Tomorrow, Let’s talk turkey!

Are you on Facebook? You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. If so, visit my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood

Roasted Garlic Cheesy Cauliflower

I bought a couple of heads of cauliflower at the farmer’s market, but wasn’t excited to serve it steamed with cheese, as make-believe rice, wannabe mashed potatoes, or even spiced up and roasted whole.

A trip to Trader Joe’s later, I had some inspiration for a main dish casserole I could serve with a salad. Later this week it will be a great side dish for smoked sausage or, if I’m feeling inspired, Roasted Frenched Pork Chops.

If you don’t eat, or don’t like pork products, you can easily substitute shredded chicken (grocery store rotisserie or home prepared) for the ham and either leave the bacon out or substitute turkey bacon. Another option is to cut leftover steak or prime rib into cubes as a substitute for the ham and leave in the bacon. If you are vegetarian you can leave the meat out completely and add more bell pepper (red, yellow, orange or green). It’s a recipe that’s easy to get creative with.

Roasted Garlic Cheesy Cauliflower

2 Heads of Cauliflower
2 Cups Shredded Pepper Jack Cheese
8 oz Cream Cheese
2 Cups Shredded Aged Gouda (or Trader Joe’s Gouda/Parmesan Blend) Cheese
4 TBLS Butter
1 Green Bell Pepper Diced
3 Chopped Green Onions
6 Slices Cooked Bacon
2 Cups Diced Cooked Ham
1 Clove Garlic, Roasted
3 Shallots, Roasted
Freshly Ground Pepper
About 1 TBLS Olive Oil
2 TBLS Gluten Free Flour
3/4 cup heavy cream or 1/2 & 1/2

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 Pyrex baking dish and set aside.

Peel away the papery skin and cut off the top of the garlic clove. Place inside a square of foil, drizzle with olive oil, close up the foil package, and place in a shallow pan in the oven. Do the same for the shallots. Bake 30-40 minutes and remove from oven. Set aside for a few minutes then open up foil pouch to let cool.

Break apart cauliflower heads, discard the stem and steam in a steamer in a large pot until tender but not mushy (about 20 minutes per head – you may have to do it in 2 batches). Transfer cauliflower to Vitamix Container or Food Processor and pulse until florets break apart but do not pulverize. Remove the cauliflower and put into a large mixing bowl. Add diced bell pepper, ham, half of the chopped green onions, and half of the crumbled bacon. Toss to combine.

In heavy saucepan squeeze the roasted garlic and shallots out of their skins and add 3 TBLS butter. Cook over medium heat until butter melts. Using a fork or an immersion blender stir/blend until the garlic and shallots are crushed and well combined. Add a generous amount of pepper, the cream (or 1/2 & 1/2) and bring just to a boil. Combine the last 1 TBLS of butter (melted) with 2 TBLS of the Gluten Free flour (all purpose if GF isn’t a concern for you) and blend or whisk into the mixture in the pan until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the cream cheese then 1 Cup of the pepper jack and 1 Cup of the gouda, stirring constantly until melted. It may not be a flowing sauce, but resemble a big melted blob – that’s ok. Remove from heat and pour into the cauliflower mixture in a large bowl. Use a large rubber spatula to stir together until well mixed.

Spread into prepared 9 x 13 pan, sprinkle remaining bacon, green onion and cheeses over the top, cover loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes; remove foil and continue to bake until cheese is brown and bubbly. Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 minutes. I serve with a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot for those who like more spice.

Pressure Cooker Braised Red Cabbage

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