Repeat dinner faves

I got home last night and had stopped for a few groceries. I grabbed a package of cut stew meat and some grown gravy packets. And dog shampoo but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, when I got home Hannah grabbed the raw meat pkg and was giddy with excitement. I have to tell you that's not the norm but I'm guessing, after me being gone a week, and their refusal to actually cook for themselves, she was probably craving real food.

It was late...like 9:30. She asked if we could cook it tomorrow. I told her, instant pot will cook it tonight! I told her what to do and she started the meat. She added a pkg of gluten free brown gravy mix and 1/4 cup water. She prefers it to Lipton onion soup mix.

Then I hopped into the tub with Netflix. The girls had napped earlier so they weren't tired. We let it sit on "keep warm" for about 50 minutes after it finished and took it out before we went to bed. Hannah snuck a few bites, proclaimed she needed rice, and off to bed she went.

Tonight we reheated the meat in the toaster oven (I don't do microwaves much) and she learned how to cook rice on the stovetop, old school style. It was perfection!

So easy and gives us several meals that heats fast and meets our carb/fat/protein macros.

As for the rice, I haven't liked the instant pot rice. I can't seem to get it right. It seems to be a common issue. I think if I just did 1 cup at a time it would be fine, but we make more than that so I just don't risk it.

Mastering Spanish rice would be amazing. Soon!

Hunka lunka ground beef

An interesting experiment took place. I had a big package of 97% lean ground beef in my freezer. It had been there a while and had been shoved in by a teen instead of separating it into freezer bags like I usually do. When would a mom with 2 girls need 5 pounds of ground? That's a LOT of ground!

So I had this great idea to use my instant pot to thaw it and cook it. I've heard it can be done. Easy! A facebooker on a group I'm in suggested using ground beef with a barbecue seasoning (shaker not sauce) to use for all things delicious. I figured I'd give it a go.

I peeled the heavy chuck out of its plastic and styro wrapper, made sure to get the Kotex off the bottom (I hate that stuff), and tried to bust it in half. Nope. I put it in the pot with a little water and turned on sauté. I boiled all the water out quick. It was too tall to put the lid on, of course. I had to leave so I gave up and let it sit. I got home about 2 hours later and it has thawed enough to break in half. I seasoned both chunks liberally and turned it on, adding 1/4 cup water. I used the stew option for 30 minutes. It works beautifully for roast and stew meat so I was certain if open it and find my ground beef cooked and it would crumble into perfection once finished.

Um, nope. I wish I would have taken a picture. I ended up with delicious smelling, cooked, hard, impenetrable lumps of meat. When I tried to use my spatula to break it up, it would just bend, surrendering to my utter failure.

I was able to break it up into smaller versions of itself but it was obvious this meat was unusable. I was so mad at myself. I had tasted it and OMG it was surprisingly better than I expected! I debated whether to throw it away and start over or keep trying. Since I'm no quitter, I didn't give up!

I dug around in my utensil drawer (I actually have a big drawer and a big flat crate in the cabinet full of utensils and gadgets that some may think is excessive) and found my handy dandy pampered theft tool for cooking ground meat that I never use. 

Magic! I kept pressing and twisting, turning my lunks of fail into perfect ground beef. We ate it with half-mashed potatoes and green beans. For 3 days. Because no wasting! I would sorta mix it together and add a smidge of cheese. Kind of a dismantled shepherds pie. WIN!!

This is my 94yo Gpa kicking butt back to health. That's almost a smile :)

Thanks McKenna!

My friend McKenna reminded me to  the blog so here goes....

Holidays, crazy days and we all survived. I used my Instant Pot regularly and were well fed. The last week or so I've been consumed with my ailing grandpa who's almost 94. He's the toughest man on earth and he's getting rusty on the inside.  I got back home (he's in the hospital 4 hours away) last night and as comfort food, I made ham&potato soup. I cook 2 batches, dividing the ingredients in half. 

I've decided I like mine smooth and creamy. The girls like it chunky. So, I cook mine for 7 minutes instead of 5 and then use a hand blender to smooth it out a bit. I burned my tongue. It's totally my fault, I couldn't wait!

Since I log everything into MyFitnessPal I entered the recipe and divided it by 8. It's measured as 1 cup per serving. Ish. Close enough. If you're logging macros, I've attached them via screenshot. The recipe is a few pages back and tonight I used 2% milk instead of half&half. I rarely use milk and the stuff I had expired 2 days ago. But...it was organic, marked down, and smelled fine! 

This isn't paleo but since I'm not strict, it gets a pass.