Instant Pot: Italian Bean Stew and Dumplings

Instant Pot Convert Here!

I bought an instant pot last November, mainly because we eat a lot of stews, soups and casseroles over the winter and standing over the stove is not my idea of a barrel of laughs.

Initially, I was going to go for a Crock Pot but when I started reading reviews I kept seeing Instant Pot pop up, so I did some more digging.

It seemed to be the bee's knees so I ordered one.

I have never owned or used any kind of pressure cooker so I was a bit worried about blowing up the kitchen, so far so good!

Quick disclaimer: I often use affiliate links in my post and on my site, this means that I get a small percentage of the same if you choose to buy through my link, at no cost to you.

I feel like my biggest gripe with the Instant Pot - which I love incidentally, is more to do with the wild claims of food bloggers. When I was trawling Pinterest for recipes and reviews I saw all these amazing claims "Rice cooked in 5 minutes", "Whole roast chicken in 30 minutes" and the such like.

Now these claims are not wrong but what they don't mention is that you have to add in the time it takes for the pot to come to pressure, 5-10 minutes and then the time it takes to release afterwards. As a pressure cooker newbie, I was clueless about this and was sucked in by the super fast cooking times.

Due to my ignorance, for the first few weeks, my cooking times were well off and I was having trouble getting a meal to come together, now I pretty much prepare the Instant Pot portion of the meal in advance so I don't have to think about it!

I got the Instant Pot DUO80 8 Qt 7-in-1 Multi- Use Programmable Pressure Cooker I haven't yet tried the yoghurt function, need to get onto that!

For those in Japan, I ordered this one here - please note that it has an earth on the plug, luckily we have an earthed socket next to the oven so it all plugged in fine but I know other people have had to buy an adapter to make it work for them. Voltage wise it works fine.

Now we have that out of the way... onto the recipe!

Stufato Di Fagioli Con Polpettine Di Pane

Or in other words, Italian bean Stew With Bread Dumplings

This is meat free but still very filling, it's like a hug in a bowl! Perfect for wintery evenings and was pretty quick to throw together. It got a great 9/10 from the family, so this is going on the winners list and into my evernote file of fall back recipes.

I adapted the recipe from Gino's D'Campo's Italian Escape book, mom got it me for Christmas, purely because she fancies Gino!

Serves 4

For the bean stew

2 TBSP Olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 pinches dried red chilli flakes
1 TSP fresh chopped rosemary
2 x 400g chopped tomatoes + 1/2 can of water
1 x 400g tinned borlotti beans, drained and rinsed*
1 x 400g tinned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and pepper

*For those in Japan I get my beans from Yamaya International Liquor store - if you haven't discovered this store yet, go and hunt it out, it's a gem!

For the dumplings

200g ciabatta bread*
200ml milk
1 egg beaten
2 TSP fresh chopped rosemary (recipe called for parsley)
1 TBSP flour
Olive oil

*I didn't have any ciabatta so I dug some random bread leftovers, a couple of homemade buns and the end of a french stick, out of the freezer. Let them defrost and added the milk, I needed a bit more than the recipe stated but that might have been down to the type of bread.

• Put the olive oil in the instant pot and set to saute.
• Add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes.
• Add the chilli pepper and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
• Throw in the rest of the ingredients, give a good stir.
• Change the setting from saute to soup.

Takes 11 minutes cooking time but remember to add the coming up and releasing the pressure!

Dumplings...

• Chop the bread into small cubes.
• Warm the milk then pour over the bread, I needed to add a bit more milk, maybe due to the fact it wasn't ciabatta. 
• Leave to soak for 10 minutes.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Stir in the rosemary, egg and flour. The recipe called for lemon zest too but I didn't have any so skipped that bit completely.
• It should make a sticky type dough.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan, scoop the dough into walnut sized balls and cook until golden all over.

Cooking Corner - English Teacakes

Ebi-kun is off school at the moment so I am putting him to work in the kitchen, he loves making mac and cheese from scratch but I want him to expand his repertoire. He is starting with bread!

Many people think that making bread is difficult, it's not, it just takes a bit of patience and it's a great recipe for kids. 

This recipe is from Paul Hollywoods 100 Great Breads, which has become one of our most used cookbooks, we haven't tried them all yet but we have tried quite a few! No disasters so far, and the recipes are easy to follow, so if you are looking for a good bread book I can highly recommend it.

This is the first time we have tried the teacakes though, slightly adapted recipe:

400g strong flour
1.5 tsp salt
40g caster sugar (he used brown)
20g yeast
1tsp cinnamon
200ml water
50g softened butter
140g mixed dried fruit
1 egg beaten for eggwash

Put the flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon, butter, yeast and water into a large bowl and mix together for 2 minutes. Tip the dough onto a slightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Return to the bowl and let rest for 1 hour.

Line a baking tray or use a silicon tray. Add the mixed dried fruit to the dough and divide into 75g pieces. It doesn't matter how well you measure everything, the last piece will always be under the correct weight.

Shape into a ball (I should have shown him how to pull the dough to make it smooth here but he didn't want any help! Use a rolling pin, flatten using a rolling pin until they are about 2.5cm thick.

Place on the baking tray and leave to rise for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Brush the top of the teacakes with beaten egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Try the teacake fresh from the oven, smothered in butter.

Also delicious toasted and yes, smothered in butter! These were really good and although he doesn't know it yet, he will be making these again next week!

Jelly Eyes Tutorial - perfect to jazz up boring party food

Jelly Eyes Tutorial

I decided this year that I wasn't going to do eyeballs and severed fingers for the party but... I ended up with eyes and fingers again, how does this happen? This year though I changed my fingers and eyes, no sausages and eggs this year.

First up are the stickable yes, these turned out way better than I hope and the brilliant thing is that they just stick to things, no extra 'glue' required.

They are also quick to make, so if you are short of time and end up buying your party food you can son jazz it up with a few sticky eyes.

What you need:

I did two colours of eyes, so this is for two colours but you'll catch the drift, it's hardly brain surgery!

• Silicon tray or greaseproof paper
• 3 small bowls
• Gelatine powder
• Food colours, black for the pupil then I used red and green for the iris
• 3 small bowls
• Warm water
• 3 spoons for mixing
• Pipet

Tip some of the gelatine powder into a bowl

Add a couple of drops of black food colour

Then add the water, I didn't measure it, you want it to be quite thick, it should start to set pretty quickly, so only mix up one jelly colour at a time.

Use the spoon and make drops of jelly on the greaseproof paper, remember to keep them spaced out.

The jelly should start to set pretty quickly, in a minute or two. Once it has set you can mix up the next colour. Basically do the same as before.

This time use the pipet to deposit the jelly around the black dots. Now I did try using a spoon at first but I couldn't control where the jelly went and it was all pretty disastrous! Pipets rule! Again, you need to work fairly quickly because the jelly will start to set. There is no need to move it to the fridge to set. I was working at rom temperature and it was fine.

Once you have done one colour you can do the second. Leave to set completely, once the washing up is done they should be well set. Then you can simply peel off the silicon/greaseproof paper and stick them on whatever you like!

I actually used most of them in the Eyeful Trifle. They stick brilliant to the inside of the glass bowl so I just added the layers for the jelly and had little eyes looking out!

The roll cake got eyeballed before being chopped up for the trifle base *evil laugh*

If you make some let me know, tag me over in Moms That Rock or on Instagram, I'd love to see what you did with yours!

Cooking Corner - Rustic Ham Mousse

Rustic Ham Mousse

If you need to whip something up for a pot luck party or a quick lunch, this is something that will impress. Every time I make this I get asked for the recipe (which is a bit embarrassing because it is SO simple to make!)

It's also a great one for the kids to do, as long as they are supervised when using the blender.

What you need:

200g of cream cheese
150g cooked ham (quality ham not that horrid processed pretend ham)
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Fresh chives, finely chopped (optional)
Salt and pepper

Pop the cream cheese and ham in a blender and whizz up until smooth. Add the mustard and chives and combine.

Serve with crusty bread and veg sticks.

Told ya, super easy and it's delicious!

The Cooking Corner - Potato, cheese and courgette pizza

When I was growing up, we always had a Sunday Roast on a Sunday evening, no matter where we had been or what we were doing, my mom always managed to pull of a roast. I'm not sure how, it take me all day to deal with a roast dinner!

Here we have sort of fallen into the tradition on pizza on a Sunday evening, it's quick and easy and doesn't matter if we are out all day. I like to try new recipes, so here is out latest, adapted from a Jamie recipe.

Potato, Cheese and Courgette Pizza

Recipe: (makes 3 personal sized pizza)

For the dough, I admit, I am lazy and throw it all in the bread maker, set it to pizza dough and leave it to it. If you are doing it by hand, mix the dry ingredients together (except yeast) first then add the wet and mix together until all combined. Let rest somewhere warm, then knock back, separate into 3 chunks and roll out, place on lined baking trays.

• 100g strong white flour
• 100g wholewheat bread flour
• 50g semolina flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 7g dry yeast
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 165ml warm water (add yeast to this if you are hand mixing)

For the topping. 

• 125 g boiled new potatoes
• 1tsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 medium onion thinly sliced
• shake of dried basil
• 100g thinly sliced cheese
• 200g courgette, slice with a veg peeler

Heat the oven to 250deg C

Heat a frying pan with the olive oil in it. Then add the garlic and onions, cook through until golden. Add the potatoes and mash into the onion and garlic. Season and add the basil. Turn off the heat.

Spoon the potato mix over the bases then add a layer of sliced cheese and finally the courgette on the top. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, then pop in the oven.

The original recipe said 7 - 10 minutes but ours need 15 mins, so keep and eye on them!

Really tasty and a good way to use up left over spuds! Also a great recipe for anyone who doesn't like tomatoes.

If you have a great pizza recipe let me know in the comments, always on the look out for new things to try!

The Cooking Corner - Overnight Oats - choco banana

Ebi-kun eats like a horse in the mornings, he puts away far more than both daddy and myself, I'm not sure where he puts it because there isn't much of him!

In the winter we alternate between porridge and eggs in the mornings but now the summer is here, no one wants porridge, and eggs every morning gets a bit boring!

A lot of my health nut friends have been posting about overnight oats and I must admit, the thought of cold porridge makes me want to vom... but... I though it was worth a try!

The first batch I made was tropical fruit and went down well, so we tried choco banana today, also good except when I was making the breakfasts up last night I had left the choco chips on the shelf above the oven so they had melted! That meant is was less of a choco chip, more of a choco chunk!

The great thing about overnight oats is that it doesn't take long to put together and in the morning you just take it out of the fridge and eat - minimum washing up too!

I used the jugs that came with the nutribullet but any big glass or jar would do.

RECIPE: (makes 1 serving)

• 1/3 cup yoghurt
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1 medium banana chopped
• 2/3 cup milk
• few dashes of vanilla
• 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
• 2 tbsp choco chips (or a sold blob!)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds (for those in Japan I got them at Kaldi)

You can easily sub in things like almond milk or gluten free oats to suit your needs.

Put in a cup/jar. Put on a lid and shake well until mixed - if you don't have something with a lid you could mix it in a bowl and mix well instead.

Put on the lid and pop in the fridge.

By the morning it has all combined into a thick mixture. I'm not overly excited at the texture, as I'm not really a fan of gooey foods but it goes down ok and it really fills you up! Because it's oats, it keeps you feeling full for longer too, which means I don't get those mid morning munchie feelings!

I will share other versions as we try them!

And if this is something you eat at home, share your favourite combos!

Sweet Potatoes In The Rice Cooker...

Now the weather is getting warmer, OK not warm, really bloody hot, I try not to use the oven so much because that just doubles the heat inside! So I want to share a trick that I learned from Kirstin. Cooking sweet potatoes in the rice cooker!

I know, who knew!

My rice cooker is tiny, it can only cook 3 cups of rice in one go, so if I have small sweet potatoes I just top and tail them and poke the skin with a sharp knife a couple of times.

But more often that not, the sweet potatoes won't fit in the rice cooker pan, so instead I slice the, into 2cm rounds.

Add about 2cm of water to the bottom of the pan, then stack the slices so there is space between them. Pop the pan in the machine and press go. I just use the normal setting, I have to admit, the rice cooker is very basic and doesn't have programs for fancy stuff.

Every time I have done this the potatoes have been soft, moist and fluffy to eat, unlike when  bake them, they sometimes come out dry. If you haven't tried this yet, go for it!

I hear it is possible to do cake in there too... another adventure awaits!

Taste Tests: Ebi-kun Eats special #foodrevolution

Ebi-kun Eats speacial today!

This was for the Jamie Oliver's #foodrevolution. Ebi-kun wanted to cook a nice healthy meal and he did it live streaming to Facebook. The original was (painfully) long so we edited it down!

Enjoy... And if you want the recipes, click through to his YouTube channel, he posted them over there.

Hot Buttered Spiced Rum

Oh My! 

I HAVE to share this yummy recipe with you, it's soooo much better than eggnog!

What you need:

200g butter

200g brown sugar

2 tbsp cream

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp allspice

A healthy slug of spiced dark rum

Blend together the butter, sugar, cream and spices.

Boil the kettle and then half fill your mug.

Add the rum (however much you can handle!)

Stir in a large spoonful of the butter mix until it has all melted.

Snuggle up on the sofa with a fully blanket and a good book.

Halloween Punch For Kids

Another quick and easy recipe. Not sure I can actually call this a recipe but it looks pretty awesome.

What you need:

• Canned lychee
• Blueberries
• Some kind of pop - I used apple sour

Drain your lychee then pop a blueberry inside the lychee. I used frozen berries and put the lychee/blueberry eyes back in the freezer until I needed them. I worked quickly so the blueberries didn't have chance to defrost.

When you are ready, dump the eyes in the punch bowl and add your drink - Bam, done.

Loved this post? Share and pin it, thanks!

I have put together my favourite Fun & Fast Ghoulish Halloween Treats into an ebook so you can whip them up at anytime (why just serve ghoulish food at Halloween?)

17 absolutely disgustingly delicious treat ideas... 

All fast and fun to make

All pretty healthy, made from kitchen basics

Most of them suitable to make with the kids too

PLUS a bonus labels pack too!

Zucchini Brownie Graveyard

Some people seem to think that I spend a lot of time on my Halloween madness, but the truth is, I'm pretty lazy and I'm all for taking the easiest-least-amount-of-work possible route. This graveyard cake is the the perfect example!

What you need:

• a zucchini brownie cake (recipe on this post)
• chocolate butter cream, I didn't weigh anything, just chucked butter, cocoa and icing sugar in and blended them
• white chocolate
• skeleton mold (something like this) I have a dinosaur bones and a skull mold so I used those
• gummy worms
• optional - stone candy, grave stones, coffins...

Super easy, Make the cake, smash it up, dollop some buttercream in, then half bury the bones, skulls and worms etc. Done!

I did it in a big pan this time just because it was easier to transport to the party, if we had this at home I'd have gone to town a bit but I really needed to keep this version simple.

Like this post? Share and pin it - go on, don't be a meanie :D

I have put together my favourite Fun & Fast Ghoulish Halloween Treats into an ebook so you can whip them up at anytime (why just serve ghoulish food at Halloween?)

17 absolutely disgustingly delicious treat ideas... 

All fast and fun to make

All pretty healthy, made from kitchen basics

Most of them suitable to make with the kids too

PLUS a bonus labels pack too!

Healthy 2 ingredient - fill me up cookies

That's right, only 2 ingredients for these. So, these came about because Ebi-kun eat like a horse in the morning so I wanted to have some 'extras' on hand to help fill him up if he was still hungry after his breakfast (we usually have porridge or toast and eggs with fresh fruit and yoghurt). These have gone down well, simple to make and adapt with the extras you can put in.

I'm not sure cookie is the right name for them, they have more of a cake like texture rather than cookie.

What you need…

2 bananas

2 cup of quick cook oats

Any extras…(I didn't measure, just chucked some in)

dried fruit

choco chips

desiccated coconut

cocoa nibs

dried cranberries

1. Heat the over to 190deg C
2. Place a sheet of parchment paper on the over tray
3. In a blender, whizz the oats until it makes a flour.
4. Remover the flour and next do the bananas until well smashed
5. Stir in the flour until it makes a dough
6. Mix in your extras
7. Roll into balls and place on the parchment paper - makes about 10 (depends on the size of your bananas)
8. Bake for 10 minutes
9. Allow to cool - store in an airtight container

Another thing we tried was Claire's secret healthy choco sauce, she shares it in tomorrows video interview! If you haven't registered yet, sign up HERE.

A Fusion Food Day…

Yesterday was a prefectural holiday for Ebi-kun, we didn't have any special planned, so we just hung out at home and had a trip to the park. Before I had started breakfast Ebi-kun was reading the Mission Explore Food book, the page about fusion food so he asked if we could have a fusion food day! Nothing like leaving it to the last second to do this! So we had some bacon and eggs but no bread except pita, so we ended up with bacon and egg pita pockets, it was actually really good and we will be trying it again!

After lunch he started brainstorming different food combo's we could try for lunch, of course it is the end of the week so I didn't have that much in but what he came up was a Italy / Japan combo….

We bring to you…margarita nori maki! A layer of nori seaweed, spread with rice add a layer of warm tomato & basil sauce add a topping of cheese then roll. Serve with string cheese and apple!

Personally, I can't see margarita nori maki being the next big thing. Cheese and nori are just not a good combo! I already had a big pot of cream veg stew for dinner so no weird fusion combo to finish the day off but he asked if we can have a fusion dinner at the weekend…. watch this space!

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The MOC Playbook: What Macgyver Would Do If He Had Kids

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Staffordshire Oatcakes...nom,nom,nom

Staffordshire Oatcakes are a local speciality from my hometown, they are nothing like Scottish oatcakes, they are more like English pancakes or french crepes. I was having cravings for a bit of something from home so I decided to rustle some up...

Ingredients - makes 12-16

1tsp salt

225g oat flour (whizz porridge oats in the processor until fine)

225g plain white flour (I use half white half brown)

7g yeast

425ml warm milk
425ml warm water

1 tsp sugar

Mix the water and milk, it should be warm. Add the yeast.
Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix to make a batter
Cover with a damp cloth and leave for an hour.

Heat a pan or griddle and oil lightly. Use a ladle and spoon one ladle full into the pan, you have to do this quickly, use the back other ladle to spread the batter out, it needs to be thin and even. Takes a bit of practise, my first couple are always a bit lumpy and uneven!

The batter will bubble a bit, when the top looks dry, flip over and finish with 30 seconds to brown the other side.

Pile onto a plate and repeat...

To eat, you can wrap any kind of filling in it, baked beans and cheese are my favourite. We had a little oatcake shop next to my college that sold large oatcakes filled with 'English breakfast' all wrapped and ready to go, very messy if I recall correctly. I have friends who like butter and jam in theirs but I must admit, I prefer mine savoury!

If you are using the oatcakes later, you can sprinkle with grated cheese and zap in the microwave until the cheese is melted or put it on the grill to heat through. They also freeze well, just wait until the have cooler before putting them in a ziplock and into the freezer.

A new favourite dinner

Sometimes my husband will have dinner out, for a business meeting or whatever, so it is just me and Ebi-kun. This had fast become our favourite, daddy free meal, thanks to my mom.

Take a whole camembert cheese, pop it in a heatproof dish and zap in the microwave until the middle has melted. Serve with veg sticks, we like steamed broccoli too and tortilla chips. Quick, easy and gets totally demolished.

Sick Days

Being an entrepreneur rocks, well most of the time. Of course I don't have the predictability of a regular monthly income but I do get to work when I like and where I like. Now I have a laptop I can pretty much just up and go whenever the mood takes me.

It also means that I can fit my hours around Ebi-kuns schedule, if he has a holiday or half day from school, I don't need to worry about finding child care, I can just work around it. But, I have to admit, this week has been rather tough. Ebi-kun has had 3 days off school because of a fever, well it started as a fever and ended up with a sore throat. The fever was easier to deal with because he was happy just crashed out on the sofa, watching TV or reading a book. Once the fever had gone, then it gets tricky because he wants to play, do stuff, witter in  my ear for hours on end!

In the school holidays, I can send him outside to play but not when he is off sick! He can't swallow very well so he won't manage a school dinner so I have him under-foot. Of course, I still have a certain amount of work to do, so in the morning I have set him some puzzles and maths quizzes to do,  I will have to take some time off in the afternoon to play games, read books and maybe watch some Bear Gyrlls: Man vs Wild - we are addicted to his shows!

Whenever Ebi-kun is sick he always asks for chow-chow and soldiers, bread soldiers in this case, toast is too difficult to swallow. The other favourite is soup, must be homemade! Chow-chow is actually boiled egg chopped up with tomatoes and mayo, quite partial to it myself!