Creamy Italian Pork Chops

My first post!  So I got a pressure cooker because I was "pressured" by Melanie to get one.  And boy do I like playing with it.  Here is my latest test dinner.

4-6 boneless pork chops
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
1 pkg zesty Italian dressing mix
1/2 stick butter
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 c milk or water

Brown pork chops in the oil on the brown setting in your pressure cooker.  Add the soup, dry dressing mix, milk or water, butter, cider vinegar.  Bring to high pressure and cook 8 minutes.  Natural release for 10 min then quick release.   Cut softened cream cheese into chunks.  Open PC and add cream cheese.  Stir until melted through.   Pork chops will be very tender and you have lots of sauce/gravy. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes.  (The apple cider vinegar gives it a little zing).

Pork chops become pork salad

 

Pork chops in the preassure cooker? Yes!  Aside from a lesson learned about trying to brown my chops on too high a heat, and learning that yes, my smoke alarms work very well thankyou...  So because we have the late meeting schedule I wanted to do as much as I could before church.  I marinated my chops overnight in a ziplock bag with a cup of Paul Newmans light sesame ginger dressing.  I just left the bag of meat/dressing in the fridge overnight.  I removed a chop and used a paper towel to blot up some of the dressing before browning in olive oil in a skillet.  Watch that you don't turn your heat up too high, or you too will find yourself testing your own smoke alarms!  After browning, I put the chops back in the fridge until after the meetings were over.  Once we returned home, I placed the chops on my steamer basket and used 2 cups of chicken broth to high pressure for 8 minutes, natural release for 10 minutes and then quick release the rest.  The leftover broth now infused with pork will make the start of a wonderful stew or soup.  And while the pork was cooking, I was assembling this:

2 cups of iceberg lettuce, 1 c fresh spinach, 2 boiled eggs, chopped, 1/2 c chopped cashews.  Chopped sweet bell peppers, tomatoes, bacon bits, fresh parmesan and croutons.  I added some wild rice, sliced the pork chops and drizzled with balsamic vinegrette.  The man I eat with did not add the vinegrette, and he enjoyed it just fine.  I'm going to call this dinner a success!

Melanie's Creole Buttah Chickee

As I was lookng for something to cook in my pressure cooker a few weeks back, I came across this recipe for Indian Butter Chicken

http://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/2014/04/pressure-cooker-indian-butter-chicken/

It was good, but we have not eaten a lot of indian cuisine, so the flavors went in a different direction than what we are used to. But I liked the process and decided to change it to what we like.  And that is how Melanie's Creole Buttah Chickee was born.  (must be said in a red neck accent)

We had 3 extra adults for dinner, and we still have enought for a 2nd meal this week, and I froze enough sauce (no pasta) for another meal in a few weeks.

 The cast of characters

• 10 boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 2 cans (14 oz.) diced tomatoes and juice
• 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 white onion
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning
• 2 teaspoons caraway seeds
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup firmly packed minced cilantro

Directions

Cut the chicken pieces into quarters.

Put tomatoes, jalapeno and onion salt, cream and yogurt in a blender or food processor and blend to a fine puree.

Add butter to pressure cooking pot, select Browning. When butter is melted and foam begins to subside, add the chicken pieces, a few at a time, and sear until they are nicely browned all over (about 2-3 minutes per batch). Remove them with a slotted spoon into a bowl and put aside.

Add ground cumin and paprika to the butter in the pot and cook, stirring rapidly, for 10-15 seconds. Add the tomato mixture, and chicken pieces (with any juices that have accumulated in the bowl) to the pot. Gently stir the chicken to coat the pieces. Cover and lock lid in place. Select High Pressure and 5 minutes cook time. When timer beeps, turn off and use a natural pressure release for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes use a quick pressure release to release any remaining pressure.

Stir in the creole seasoning and caraway seeds.  Whisk together cornstarch and water in a small bowl. Stir in to sauce in the pot. Select sauté and bring to a boil. Turn off pressure cooker and stir in minced cilantro.

Serve over rice or pasta.

The protien

 The final product

Curry Chicken and Rice

I totally forgot that we were having company over for dinner tonight... SO I threw some stuff in the PC and fed 4 adults and 3 children in under 30 minutes.

Curry Chicken and Rice Casserole

Rice (rinsed) 3cups (CalRose shortgrain, white)
Chicken Stock 4 cups
Head of broccoli- chopped
1/3 head of Cauliflower- chopped
1 onion rough chopped
1 bag baby carrots chopped
1 can of chicken (or any cooked chicken you have left over)
1 pkt Golden Curry bullion ( I used all 5 cubes for this large meal)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
TBS each garlic and onion powder
tsp salt and pepper

I cooked it on high for 18 minutes. Quick release, stirred everything together and transferred to a casserole dish (because we had company). Covered in a layer of shredded cheese while it was still hot (so it melted between the five minutes it took to get it from the stove top to the table).


UM. It was delicious. That is all.

Wild Rice

So as I am learning how to use my pressure cooker, I am also learning how not to use my pressure cooker.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

I read a blog post somewhere out there about wild rice.  Evidently anciently it was called forbidden rice because only the royalty was allowed to eat it.  Anything that is not for the muckity muck is on my list of food to try!  So went shopping at the asian market. It's like a food fieldtrip!  So many thinks to see and smell and wonder about how to fix it... but I wanted wild rice at a decent price so there I was.

So tonight was the night to try the rice.  There are only 2 of us, so I have to learn how to cook less... still working on that, but on the upside I have leftovers for sometime later in the week.  

Wild Rice

1 1/2 c sweet wild rice

1 tsp salt

1/2 tbs olive oil

3 c cicken broth

pressure on high 23 minutes.  Quick release.  Done!

I also learned that frozen paremsan crusted talapia filets from Sam's club are not to be cooked in the pressure cooker.  Even above the liquid.  All it did was made my fish soggy.  And not cooked. So  my broiler in the oven saved the day, 10 minutes later dinner was ready.   We served with green salad and the husband had applesauce with his.

Dinner:  Success!

Pork Loin

I get Pork Loin pre-marinated from my grocer, and it takes about 1.5 lbs to feed my masses. I bake 2lbs so we have leftovers, and use the drippings for gravy.
I didn't have time to let it completely defrost yesterday, and so I put two 1lb half frozen pork tenderloins in the pressure cooker on the rack, and 1/2 cup of water underneath. Cooked it on high for 25 min, let it natural release, 7-10 minutes. It was tender, delicious, and served again as lunch for my husband. I served it with fresh greens and french bread, toasted and slathered with butter and garlic. All my children ate it with out complaint- and that's really what's important here!  Next time I'll only go 22 minutes though.

Zuppa Toscana

Because it's freezing.  Ok it's freezing for Texas.  If you live anywhere else north of here, it's only mildly cold.  But since Texas is home, it is freezing!  And our besties are out of town so normal friday night date night lets go out to dinner with our friends won't happen.  And I happened to have kale and sausage in the house.  And let's face it, I just really like it.  So soup it is.  I also know this conversation will happen in just a few minutes:

Him:  Soup is not a dinner. Soup is a lunch.  Why would you give me lunch at dinner time?

Me:  ...sluuuuurp...

Really.  This is how the conversation will happen.  

But did I mention I just really like it?  

Did  I really need to use the pressure cooker?  probably not, but since it was out on the counter as usual, and its already dinner time, I did it.   mmmmm good grub!

http://www.food.com/recipe/olive-garden-copycat-zuppa-toscana-38298

1 lb Italian sausage (we used hot)

6 small red potatoes, quartered

1/2 c chopped white onion (already chopped and in the freezer)

1/4 c bacon bits (yay for big package at Sam's Club that lives in my pantry!)

2 tsp minced garlic

2 c chopped kale

2 cans chicken broth (also in my freezer)

1 cup heavy cream

Using brown function, cook sausage and onion and garlic until meat is not pink.

Add potatoes

Add broth.  Bring to high pressure 4 minutes.  Turn off cooker

Quick release.

Stir in bacon bits and kale, let soup sit until kale wilts, 5 minutes or so

Add cream .  Stir season with salt and black pepper.

Enjoy!

Green Chile Venison

I was defrosting my deep freeze the other week and as I was hanging my head upside down in the freezer reaching what was on the bottom, I found some venison that was given to me by a neighbor.   Evidently his 15 year old teenage daughter shot her first whitetail deer, but because she had looked into the eyes of the deer, she refused to eat the venison and begged her father to get rid of it.  So her funny teenage mind blessed my freezer with the ultimate in yummyness!  All of a sudden my memories flased back to growing up in southern Airzona and the delicious mexican food my mother served regularly.  What do other families eat when they don't eat mexican food?   So right then and there I decided I NEEDED a good green chilie in my life.  The only problem was I was still in the middle of freezer defrostation.  I know you are thinking "Dang!  Her life is sooooo hard!"  Thank you for your sympathetic thoughts.    So I finished the freezer and took my venison inside for wonderfulness to hapen.  After scouring my brain for hidden childhood recipes, I finally gave in and went to pinterest where I read multiple recipes for green chile stew, both pork and cicken. Then with that as my starting point, I used what I had and adapted it for the pressure cooker.  

This recipe made enough for christmas eve green chile sourcream enchiladas and a dozen burritos for the freezer 

Green Chile Venison Stew

2 3/4 inch thick venison steaks/chops*

1 lb ground venison**

1 large onion (chopped)

1 garlic clove (chopped)

2 8 oz cans of salsa verde

2 cans green chiles

1 fresh jalapeño, seeded and chopped

6 red potatoes cut in quarters

1 c chicken broth

1 can red kidney beans (drained)

1 can black beans (draied)

Cut the steaks into chunks (like stew meat).  Using the brown function on your pc, brown the chunks and the ground meat (may need a small amount of crisco, depending on the fat content of your venison)  Set meat aside. 

Using the brown function, brown onion and garlic until translucent, about 5 minutes.  Once onion is translucent, add meat back to cooker. Turn off pc.   On top of the meat onion mixture add 1 can of salsa verde, green chilies, chopped jalapeno, potatoes.   Add chicken broth and top with the 2nd can of salsa verde.  Pressure on high 25-30 minutes.  Natural release for 10 minutes.  Quick release after that.  Open pressure cooker and using a potato masher squish all that deliciousness together.  Add the beans and continue to mash.  Eat a big ol bowl with chips and sour cream on top.  Use for enchiladas. Make burritos.  Its very versitile and oh so good!

* may use pork or chicken 

**ground beef or pork may be used

Pressure Cooker:  Brown, High

Natural release 10 minutes, quick release after that

No trivet, food directly in liquid