Sides

Instant Pot Quinoa

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I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe during this difficult time. Now that California is in lockdown, I’m going to try to post more pantry oriented recipes while I’m home. This is one of my favorite and easiest recipes for meal planning.

Quinoa is gluten free and considered a whole grain, even if it’s technically a seed that’s prepared as a grain. I love how it soaks up the sauce, so we make it often with stir-fry and vegetable curry. I’ve also used it to make tabbouleh, but it can easily be added to any bowl, soup, or salad. Taco bowls with quinoa are also a big favorite at our home.

I’m lazy so I don’t rinse it beforehand, besides most of the commercially sold quinoa today has been processed to remove the bitter coating. I also usually cook it in chicken broth or stock in the instant pot to give it a ton of flavor. Feel free to use vegetable stock or water if you are on budget or to make it vegan.

Instant Pot Quinoa
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 cup of quinoa
  • 3 cups of water
Instructions
  1. Add 2 cups of quinoa to the instant pot.
  2. Then add 3 cups of water. Make sure all the seeds are submerged with a spoon.
  3. Secure lid and valve so it is locked.
  4. Press the rice button, which is set to 12 minutes on low pressure.
  5. When it is finished, use quick release with an oven mitt to protect your hand.
  6. Fluff with a fork and you are ready to serve.
Notes
Substitute water with chicken or vegetable stock for maximum flavor.

Health & Wellness

Freezable Favorite Soups

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For those of you who are home and need to meal plan during this crazy time here are my favorite freezable soups that make a ton of food. Some of these aren’t completely paleo, and do contain beans. Feel free to omit ingredients that don’t make you feel good or add ingredients from your pantry such as rice or pasta. When it comes to meal planning and this pandemic, I’m not being completely strict about my diet. Cooking from whole foods and freezing your leftovers will always be more healthy than processed food.

Roasted Butternut and Apple Soup

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

 

Spicy Italian Sausage and Lentil Soup

Sausage and Lentil Soup

 

Instant Pot Split Pea Soup

split pea and ham soup

 

Nonni’s Cauliflower Soup

Nonni's Cauliflower Soup

 

Kimchi Soup

Kimchi Soup

 

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

 

Italian Cabbage and Carrot Soup

Italian Cabbage and Carrot Soup

Dinner

Instant Pot Uncured Corned Beef

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instant_pot_corned_beef

I highly recommend everyone pick up this delicious and easy uncured corned beef brisket before St. Patrick’s Day. It’s already seasoned, so all you need to do is add water to  your Instant Pot and put it on high for 90 minutes. I boiled gold potatoes and carrots in a large pot so I could monitor them easily. My husband and I don’t like our veggies too mushy so we keep a close eye on them and periodically taste test.

Make sure you cook this in water and not chicken or beef stock. I made that mistake last year and my corned beef turned out way too salty. I find corned beef to be a salty product so don’t add more. I kept my potatoes and carrots pretty bland to balance out the flavors.

trader_joes_uncured_corned_beef

Instant Pot Uncured Corned Beef
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 6.5 lbs Uncured Corned Beef Brisket (seasoning included)
  • 1.5 cups of water
Instructions
  1. Add brisket and seasoning from your package of corned beef brisket to instant pot.
  2. Then add water over brisket and seal instant pot.
  3. Set pressure to high for 90 minutes. Quick release when done.

Soups

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

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Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

This roasted butternut squash and apple soup is one of my favorites. It’s dairy free, the garnish is cashew milk, not cream. It’s paleo friendly and will still satisfy your sweet tooth. I also included roasted yellow onions in here. Don’t omit them, they balance out the overly sweet squash and apples to give a nice savory flavor to the soup. This recipe makes a pretty thick soup, but feel free to add more broth if you prefer the broth to be thinner.

If this seems like too much work, or you are looking for a simpler recipe, try my Basic Butternut Squash Soup. It’s not even much a recipe just steamed and blended butternut squash.

I garnished this soup with chives and unsweetened cashew milk that I quickly made in my Vitamix. I made way too much of it, so I’m going to have come up with recipe with smaller portions. This one was just 2 cup of raw unsalted cashews that I soaked for a couple hours, rinsed, and then blended with 2 cups of water. Add more or less water for desired creaminess. It makes good hot chocolate if you add cacao powder and maple syrup to the leftover cashew milk.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 lbs butternut squash, chopped
  • 1 quart of low sodium chicken broth (vegetable broth to make vegan)
  • 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
  • 1 honey crisp apple, peeled and chopped
  • 1 tsp sea salt or to taste
  • (optional) chives to garnish
  • (optional) cashew milk to garnish (or milk/cream of choice)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease or spray a pan with oil.
  3. Then add chopped butternut squash, onion, and apple to pan.
  4. Cook at 350 for 2 hours or until butternut squash, apples, and onions are tender.
  5. Blend squash, apples, and onions with broth in a high speed blender in batches, then transfer to a large pot.
  6. Salt to taste and cook on medium for 15 minutes to blend flavors. Stirring constantly or soup will splash. Blended soups can be messy if you leave them alone.

Sides

Roasted Delicata Squash

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delicata squash

This roasted delicata squash was surprisingly easy to make and chop. For safety reasons, I oftentimes steam my squashes first before I chop them, but that wasn’t necessary for delicata squash. In fact, it was surprisingly easy to roast it with a little olive oil and sea salt and the result was a delicious easy side that I plan on making again. I love how the skin is edible so you don’t have to peel it either.

I would throw these in a fall roasted vegetable salad, it would also be very easy to make a sauce and dip them like fries. I’ve seen a lot of recipes that add brown sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon like sweet potatoes, so it would be really easy to get creative and make it your own.

Roasted Delicata Squash
 
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Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • 1 delicata squash
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
  2. Chop delicata squash and remove seeds from the middle.
  3. In a large bowl, mix the chopped delicata squash, sea salt and olive oil.
  4. Line pan with parchment paper, and roast for 20 minutes on each side.

Dinner

Pumpkin Spice Chili

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pumpkin spice chili

September is here and it’s officially fall, even if it is insanely warm here in Los Angeles. But the heat isn’t going to stop me from making fall recipes, which is one of my favorite seasons for cooking. My husband and I love everything pumpkin spice, so I wanted to test my skills and make a sweet and spicy pumpkin spice chili. This recipe is paleo friendly but I did use maple syrup to sweeten it up. I usually like to add some sort of healthy sweetener to my chili recipes to balance the spicy and sour flavors.

I used pumpkin puree from a can, because I wanted to make this recipe as easy as possible for meal planning. Kroger had a large can of 100% pumpkin puree with a non BPA Liner and no preservatives at my local Ralphs. I was really happy with the color and texture of the pumpkin puree for my chili. It thickened up the chili, without adding any thickeners and it also gave it a nice warm brown color after all the spices were added.

Chili is amazing for meal planning and I make it all the time. It’s doesn’t take long, freezes well, and you can get creative with the ingredients. Most of the time I don’t even measure. I just play around with different spices and ingredients that I have available in my pantry and taste test as I go. For inspiration for this recipe, I loosely based it off my Slow Cooker Cincinnati Chili recipe and my Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend from Frontier Co-op. Please let me know if you want more pumpkin spice recipes or share your favorite ones in the comments.

Pumpkin Spice Chili
 
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Ingredients
  • 2 tbsp coconut oil
  • 2 lbs ground beef
  • 29 oz or 1 lb of canned pumpkin puree
  • 3 small sweet onions, or two medium to large ones
  • 2 cups of chicken stock
  • ½ tsp allspice
  • 4 tsp cumin
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp sweet paprika
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • 3 tsp ancho chili powder
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • ½ cup of maple syrup
  • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tsp sea salt
  • (optional) scallions to garnish
Instructions
  1. In a large pot, brown ground beef in coconut oil.
  2. Then chop onions, and add onions, chicken stock, and pumpkin puree to the pot.
  3. Then add spices: allspice, cumin, cinnamon, sweet paprika, ground ginger, nutmeg, ancho chili powder, cayenne pepper, and sea salt. Mix pot so ingredients are evenly distributed.
  4. Add maple syrup and apple cider vinegar to the pot, mix and let simmer on low for 20-minutes.
  5. (optional) serve with chopped scallions to garnish.

A Health and Wellness Blog