Happy Monday and Some Easy Recipes

Good morning everyone! I hope you have had a good weekend getting December kicked off! Let me just say again, Yay Broncos!!! I know we were just playing the Bengals but all wins are good!!

Also, before I get started, today is my brother's birthday so a shout out to one of the greatest guys in the world!! There are not words to describe how awesome he is! Happy Birthday little brother! Here is a picture of my adorable brother and his beautiful wife!!

Okay, now to get started. Recently I got an Instant Pot on a ridiculously good Black Friday deal. I have been wanting one for a while but didn't want to pay the price. When I saw the Duo 6 Quart go down to $59 I decided to grab it. I have been a bit obsessed with it since I got it!!

I still have a lot to learn about what I can do with my Instant Pot but so far I have been fascinated with the time it has saved me! You all know how much I love to be efficient with my time!

I have been experimenting a little since I got it and I thought I would share few things with you that I have made over the past week.

First up was risotto. I LOVE risotto but it is a very time-consuming recipe to make. I looked up a basic recipe for the Instant Pot (which by the way I feel like should be called InstaPot, it is so much easier and what I call it anyway.) I may not have done everything the recipe said (when do I ever do that??) but I was pretty close.

One thing I liked about using the Instant Pot is that I did not use as much butter. I would recommend that if you are putting something besides mushrooms in your risotto that you figure out the best time to put it in. For example, spinach. I put some in mine but I waited until the risotto was done before putting it in. Also, I noticed that I did not need as much broth as it called for. Here is the basic recipe I used from thekitchn.com.

Sweet potatoes are next on the list. I love sweet potatoes and I use them for all sorts of things. I really love them in some vegetarian burritos or as fries that I bake in the oven with olive oil and rosemary.

This recipe calls for 10 minutes of cooking time then 25 minutes of natural release of the pressure but as you all know I do not have the patience for that so I did 15 minutes of cooking time and released the pressure manually. They were still good. I put 5 sweet potatoes in at once. This is a game changer for making these when I get home from work!!! Here is the site I used to get the basic recipe/time.

Bread pudding was the next thing I tried. Honestly I just wanted to use some old bread I had so I thought I would try it. You have to use a small enough round cake pain/springform pan for this or buy the accessories that go with the Instant Pot, which I did. I used this basic recipe from SimplyHappyFoodie.

I did soak the raisins in rum but I did not do all that mess about putting the liquids in one bowl, dry ingredients in another, mixing them together later, blah, blah, blah. I figure it is all getting mixed together anyway, I am not wasting a bowl or time. I just threw it all in together then threw it into the pan and put it in the instant pot and 30 minutes later I had bread pudding!! I added apples to mine because I had some that were on the edge and needed to be used. This was so delicious!!! Yes, I know it looks like cake but I flipped it out upside down. The other side looked more bread pudding-ish.

I have also made some soup and some quinoa in the Instant Pot. Word to the wise, do not saute the carrots, etc first if putting in the soup, just throw them in because otherwise they will be soggy like mine were! Also, if you are making something that does not have liquid in it, spray it with something non-stick or your stuff will be completely stuck to the pan!

Just so you know, the quinoa only had to cook on high pressure for 2 minutes!!! Isn't that amazing?? I put some kale, pecorino cheese and other veggies with mine and it was so yummy.

Well, I don't know if you have an Instant Pot but if not I can say I definitely recommend it!! I have not even begun to learn all the things I can do in mine. My brother in law said he can do a whole pork tenderloin in 10 minutes!!!

Anyway, I hope your Monday is off to a great start! Remember to keep moving so you keep the holiday weight in check!! This week I am doing 3 runs of 30 minutes, 1 run of an hour, 3-4 cycling sessions of 30 minutes, 2 full body weight workouts and my 100 stomach exercises daily!

Happy Running!

Kristi