Spaghetti Squash in the Instant Pot

Have you ever tried cooking a spaghetti squash? The standard way is to bake it in the oven or steam it in the microwave.  I only recently discovered spaghetti squash a few months ago and fell in love with it as a rice and noodle replacement. 

Since I had never cooked one before I had to look it up on Pinterest on the best way to do so. I found that the best way to yield longer "noodles" was to slice the squash into about 2-inch slices rather than cutting in half horizontally prior to baking.  Although this was a much better method, it was pretty scary to cut through the tough shell without cutting any fingertips off. Thankfully there were no casualties for myself. 

Now that I have an Instant Pot, I discovered that I could cook a spaghetti squash whole in it. SAY WHAT?! I just had to test it out and worked like a charm. The shell pretty much slid off like a glove. I'm totally now making my squash in the IP. The best part is not having to cut into the squash before hand. 

Here's the easiest recipe ever ;). 

SPAGHETTI SQUASH

Ingredients:

1 whole spaghetti squash (be sure to use one that will fit your pot insert)

1 cup water

Directions:

Add 1 cup water into instant pot. Place trivet into pot and add squash. Close kid, move valve to seal, and press manual button and adjust time to 15-20 minutes depending on size of squash. Do a quick release when done and check for doneness of squash. Cook few minutes longer if middle isn't cooked through. Peel shell, remove seeds, and shred squash. 

My Christmas Gift

For this past Christmas hubby asked me what I wanted. I thought and thought about it and decided in between an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker or a TRX workout system (well the cheaper but comparable WOSS system) and a high density foam roller. Hubby had asked me this question before Black Friday rolled up and after much thought I decided on an Instant Pot after hearing rave reviews from a few friends who have one.

We already have a stove top pressure cooker but I'm always afraid to use it for fear of it exploding like how in the movie Radio Flyer. We also have a crockpot which I use a lot, but with getting an Instant Pot I can eliminate both gadgets and just have one to do the same work. Plus it's electronic and all I have to do press a few buttons and it does the magic. 

The first meal I ended up cooking in it was a rack of St Louis baby back ribs and it only took 30 minutes to cook! That is the actual cooking time after the pot has come to pressure. It took maybe about 15-20 minutes for the pot to pressurize, then the actual magic started. 

Since this was my very first thing to make in the IP (I will be using this abbreviation to refer to the Instant Pot frequently) I was nervous as heck and didn't want to screw it up. Especially since my hubby was skeptical in getting it for me. I went to the university of YouTube to find an easy enough recipe to follow and I found this recipe by Great Chow and I had all the ingredients on hand. 

After this was done cooking, it literally did fall off the bone. The meat was so tender and flavorful after I did the BBQ sauce glaze in the oven. The only thing I'd change for next time is to use less apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, this was better than when I make it in the oven. 

Here is the link to Great Chow's website for the recipe. Really easy to follow and delicious. 

https://greatchow.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/bbq-ribs-the-greatest-fall-of-the-bone-braised-baby-back-ribs/

Banana Mochi Bread

This type of banana bread has become s family favorite over the past few years. It's unlike your regular banana bread recipe since it calls for mochiko flour (sweet rice flour) and it turns out a little more dense because it has almost a mochi like consistency with a perfect amount of sweetness. I found this particular recipe a few years ago on Just a Pinch while Googling for a banana bread recipe. This one intrigued me because of the use of mochiko flour. I'm glad I chose it since it's become a favorite of my boys. So much that my oldest asks me to buy bananas with the intention of eating them but secretly doesn't just so I can make banana mochi bread. Depending on my mood I'll make a batch into loaves, in a cake pan, or as muffins. 

Here is the yummy recipe that I hope you'll enjoy!

BANANA MOCHI BREAD

Ingredients:

1 box (16 oz.) mochiko flour 

1 cup Bisquick

4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup oil

3 tsp vanilla extract 

5 eggs

3 cups very ripe, mashed bananas

1 cup walnuts or macadamia nuts, chopped. (I omit this everytime since certain little people don't like nuts)

Directions:

Combine first six ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Separately mix oil and vanilla and add to dry ingredients.  Add eggs and mix together until batter is well blended.  Stir in bananas and nuts.  Pour into 4 greased loaf pans (8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches).  Let batter sit for about 5 minutes before putting it in the oven.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, do a toothpick test, if it comes out clean, it is done.  Remove from oven onto a wire rack to cool.

*To bake in a 9x13 baking pan, bake for 1 hour.  To bake into muffins, fill muffin tin with cupcake liners, fill tin 3/4 full, and bake for 20 minutes or till brown. Still do a toothpick test to check if it's done. 

Happy New Year 2016!!

Another year has gone by and I always tell myself to keep this blog more active but I don't.  I laugh that the one and only blog post of 2015 was a recipe for kim chee.  

Some good has come out of my dormant blog though. A foodie page on Facebook called Ono Kine Recipes has been sharing a whole bunch of recipes I've posted in past. Mostly it has been the local Hawaiian recipes that have gained exposure on Facebook via Ono Kine Recipes. When a few of my friends contacted me of my blogged recipes being shared, I got excited and started "fan-girling" 😆😊. This was a Facebook page that I was already saving and sharing posts from and now here's my very own blog recipes being shared. It's pretty cool I must say 😉👍🏼. 

On another note regarding everything else going on in my "semi chaotic life". Things have been going well and super busy. Hubby is ever so busy in all things football, big kid is in the second grade and just started taking up Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu, little kid is turning 4 in two weeks and continuing on with speech therapy school, and the fur child is getting old with congestive heart failure and taking a bunch of meds to help prolong his time with us. 

That right there is a HUGE amount of info to delve into since there's been basically LOTS of life info missing from the last time I was actively blogging. So to start off with what I hope is a more active blog this year is my first recipe of 2016 to share in another post which I will post immediately after this post...I promise 😝.  

So here's to a New Year to everyone! We've got 366 days to make the best of it...well 365 now that it's past midnight as of right now for me 😆. Stay tuned for the first recipe 😃. 

Homemade Kim Chee

Over a year ago I experimented and made my very first batch of homemade kim chee. Kim chee is a traditional fermented Korean main dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings which can taste spicy and a little sour.  Several types of vegtables can be used for kim chee such as Won Bok (Chinese cabbage or Napa cabbage), cucumbers, or daikon (Japanese radish).

I decided to try my hand in making my own kim chee since it's pretty expensive for a small jar that can be eaten in one dinner sitting. I found two recipes online that seemed easy enough to follow and I ended up changing a few things through trial and error. I found two recipes online at umamitopia.com and culinonicles.blogspot.com that I used to reference, but I pretty much used the recipe off of umamitopia instead.

I followed the directions from umamitopia in the first step of brining the cabbage. They had a tsukemono maker to help wilt down the cabbage leaves which is something that I do not have. I have the option of purchasing one from my local Asian grocer but I wasn't about to spend $50+ for such a small item. So I improvised and used a heavy plate to cover the cabbage in a bowl and placed two-5 lbs exercise weights to help weigh it down.

My first batch of kim chee turned out good but I added too much chili powder and it was REALLY spicy for my taste, but overall it turned out pretty good. My second batch turned out even better and with just the right amount of heat. My brother (the chef) even compared it to the Kohala kim chee brand from back home in Hawaii. I've tweaked a few things here and there depending how large of a batch I'm making. The jars I use are ones with a flip open lid that I got from Ikea, but you most certainly can use those Kerr or Ball canning jars.

Here is the recipe with the tweaks that I made for myself.

HOMEMADE KIM CHEE:

Ingredients:
1 medium sized Napa cabbage
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. kosher salt (I just used regular salt)
2 tbsp. dried chili powder
3 tbsp. kim chee base
2 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup shredded daikon
1 cup chopped green onions



Directions:

1. Cut the cabbage in half and cut out the core. Then cut each half in 4 equal sections. Wash the cabbage leave and spin out water in a salad spinner if you have one. If not, just shake out water using a colander.
2. Place cabbage leaves into the largest bowl that you have.  Add the sugar and salt, mix well without breaking cabbage leaves. Let sit for about 1 hours so the leaves can wilt a bit. 
3. After it has wilted a little place into large bowl, lay a large but small enough plate to completely cover the cabbage, then place a heavy object onto plate to help weigh it down. In my case they were the two-5 lb. weights. 
4. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until you see the water covering the cabbage. When the cabbage is completely covered in water it is ready.
5. Squeeze out water form the cabbage and place into a bowl. Add the carrots, daikon, and green onion.
6. In a separate bowl add the chili powder, kim chee base, fish sauce, and garlic. Mix well.
7. Add the sauce to the vegetables. During this time I use food service gloves to mix all the ingredients by hand. Otherwise a wooden spoon will suffice. If your ingredients look a little dry, add more kim chee base by the tablespoon until they look wet enough.
8. Once thoroughly mixed place kim chee into glass jars or container. Let it sit at room temperature for 2-3 days. Then refrigerate.

ENJOY!

                      

                      

                                                                                                                                           

                       

                       

                       

                       

                       

                        

                                     

Crock Pot Laulau

One of my favorite things to eat from back home is laulau. It is pork wrapped in luau (taro) leaves and which is then traditionally wrapped in ti leaves and steamed till cooked. I could buy some frozen laulau at the Asian store here but it is expensive for such a small serving and the meat is so dry.

I've always wanted to attempt to make my own but I always worried about properly cleaning the fresh luau leaves correctly. If you don't clean the clean the leaves correctly by removing the stem and fibrous part of the leaves, you'll experience an itchy throat when eating the cooked leaves. 

Well I took the chance recently after much convincing from my hubby to just try it and watching a few YouTube videos   The one idea that seemed the easiest to do without me monitoring it while steaming to cook was the crock pot method. 

I pretty much followed this YouTube video with a few minor changes of my own. 

After this was done cooking with the wonderful smell permeating in the air, this came out a WINNAH!  It turned out a lot better than I thought.  Got the seal of approval from the hubby and my brother in law who was over for dinner too.  If only I had a bigger crock put to make more since I was only able to fit about 9 small ones in there.  So with that said here's what I did along with a few changes of my own but I pretty much followed the video.


CROCK POT LAULAU:

Ingredients:
2 lbs. Luau Leaves (Taro Leaves) with the fibrous parts taken out
2 lbs. Pork Butt or Shoulder cut into big chunks
1/2 lbs. Cod (Butterfish)
Hawaiian salt
Shoyu
1/4 c. water
Banana Leaves (Cleaned)

Directions:

1. Thoroughly clean the luau leaves and take out the fibrous parts.

2. Line your crock pot with the cleaned banana leaves with the shiny side facing up.

3. Cut up the pork into big chunks. Mix about a 1/2 tbsp. Hawaiian salt and 1/4 c. shoyu.

4. Grab two leaves into your palm and lay a few pieces of pork and butterfish. Wrap up meat with leaves (view video for better idea).  Repeat with ingredients to fit as much as your crock pot allows (I wasn't able to use all of the pork and fish, so I made a very small batch of kalua pig and just threw the extra fish into the crockpot). Add 1/4 c. water over the laulau

5. Line another layer of banana leaves over the laulau and cover with a sheet of aluminum foil. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.  The video says you could also cook it on HIGH for 4 hours but according to some of the reviews some people complained the leaves weren't cooked well and their throats itched a little.

6. All the deliciousness right here! My house smelled SO good and couldn't wait to eat this up.

ENJOY!!

Portuguese Bean Soup

Portuguese Bean Soup isn't something I make too often. One of the key ingredients for this soup calls for some Portuguese sausage which can be found here in Oregon but is very expensive.

We have a stash of frozen Portuguese sausage in our freezer that we brought home from Hawaii on one of last trips and some from when our in laws visited. Although we have a stash we only bring it out to eat on occasion since we try to make that stash last until the next trip home.

I was craving for some Portuguese Bean Soup and what perfect time to have it since it started getting cold and rainy again. I don't follow an actual recipe since this is something I believe my mom taught me when I was a teenager. So this "recipe" below is basically what I normally use and how I make it. There are other recipes that call for macaroni and/or cabbage, but I never put any of that in my soup. 

For those that don't have access to local Hawaii Portuguese sausage you could possibly use smoked sausage or I've seen Mexican linguica in the grocery store as a substitute. Also, to those new to following me I tend to overcook a lot since I grew up learning to cook for a big family. I never make a small batch and it's always in a big stockpot. So you might have to adjust the recipe a bit unless you want to being this as leftovers for a few days ;p. 

PORTUGUESE BEAN SOUP

Ingredients: 

4-6 smoked ham hocks (I used smoked pork shanks this last time since it was actually cheaper and has a lot more meat)

1 stick Portuguese sausage, diced 

2 pkgs. diced ham

2-3 large potatoes cut into small cubes

2-3 large carrots peeled and sliced 

3-4 celery stalks sliced 

1 medium onion diced

4 small cans tomato sauce 

1-2 cans red kidney beans, undrained

Salt & pepper to taste 

Directions:

Boil ham hocks in a stock pot with enough water to cover it. Keep boiling hock meat and adding water until you're able to pierce a fork through the meaty part with ease. Let cool. 

*DO NOT DRAIN OR GET RID OF THE WATER USED FOR BOILING, THAT IS WHERE MAJORITY OF THE SOUP FLAVOR IS. IT'S YOUR SOUP STOCK!*

Remove meat from hock bone and chop up into smaller pieces. Heat up soup stock, add hock meat & bones and remaining ingredients. Boil over medium heat till veggies are cooked through. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Hope you like this as much as my family and I do. Enjoy!

xoxo,

Adriana