Monday, December 10, 2007

Pressure Cooker Cook-off

Mr. Bolsh wants to eat better food, but he just doesn't have the time to prepare meals so he ends up eating a lot of canned foods. Every once and awhile I teach him a new trick but it takes awhile to stick. For a Christmas present he wanted a pressure cooker so he could easily make his beans and rice. Not being able to turn down any desire Mr. Bolsh has to enhance his cooking skills, I bought him one.
I started off by cooking some lentils because the directions said the beans still needed to be soaked for 4 hours before their time in the pressue cooker.

Pressure Cooker Lentils:
1 cup lentils
2 cups liquid (from the canned tomatoes and water)
1 canned tomatoes
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic
1 cube of bullion

Put everything in the pressure cooker pot, mix and put the lid on.
Cook for 15-20 minutes.


It doesn't look that pretty but it tasted wonderful!

The next experience was Mr. Bolsh's:
Red Bean Medley Over Rice:
1 cup red beans
1 can tomatoes plus juice
2 cups water
1 bullion cube
2 medium potatoes (cubed)
1/2 onion (chopped)
2 large carrots

Throw the ingredients in a pot and cook in the pressure cooker for 20-30 minutes.

The problem with this dish is that not everything cooked at the same time. The beans were undercooked and the carrots melted in your mouth they were so soft. We need to figure out how best to add ingredients while it's cooking because we read you can.

So far we've had some hits and misses, it will just take awhile to understand how best to used it. I've also cooked potatoes make mashed potatoes. It was quick and easy.
Let me know how you like to use your pressure cooker if you have one.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Coconut Rice Pudding

Thanks to Julie I had a great breakfast pudding a nice dessert by dressing it up a bit.

Dessert Coconut Rice Pudding:
I used her Rice Pudding recipe and subbed coconut milk for the soy milk - it was so great! I used a wonderful brand of vanilla paste that has flecks of vanilla bean it in to make it more beautiful.

Dessert Coconut Rice Pudding:
This one was easily dressed up for dessert when a friend stopped by. I added some chocolate sauce on top. If I had some toasted coconut I would have thrown that on top. Or maybe a strawberry if they were in season.