Monday, February 17, 2020

Weekly Eats: Valentine's Day and More Instant Pot Adventures


A weekly round up: eats, watches, and reads.  Valentine's Day is a hit or miss holiday for us, some years we play it up and some years it barely registers.



This was our Valentine's Day last year, it was just a coincidence that our only free weekend that winter fell on Valentine's Day.

And this was our Valentine's Day this year:

A big storm came in on Wednesday, and the roads to work were iffy, so we stayed home for the rest of the week.  On Friday we both pared our workloads down to the essentials and got some Staycation time.  I got flowers and the other lady of the house got an extra W-A-L-K and doggie ice cream.  In return I made a romantic dinner and stepdog kept us safe from invading squirrels and Amazon delivery trucks.  And though a long weekend at an adults only all inclusive is nice, there's a lot to be said for staycating with your valentine.

Breakfasts
See any previous week, waffles from my valentine on Saturday.

Lunches
Chowed down on Skinny Taste's Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken, which was the first thing I made in our new instant pot (I used frozen chicken and cooked it for 25 minutes on manual high pressure).


Dinners
Monday and Tuesday (family meals): all the leftovers!  Meatloaf and twice baked potatoes.


Wednesday (date night): we had a big storm coming in, so I picked up ingredients for baked ziti and streak for Valentine's Day.   Hubs and I figured that it would be better to have steak on Wednesday since it was more pleasant grilling weather.


Thursday (fend for yourself night): I paired leftover mashed potatoes with a chicken sausage and peas.


Friday and Saturday (date nights, Valentine's Day Edition): single digit temps, hot pasta inside wtih baked ziti.

Sunday (family meal): I did my long run on Sunday instead of Saturday and I was wiped and we had places to be, so we needed a quick dinner.  Hubs suggested a chicken and rice deal and I wanted to test the instant pot's rice cooking feature so I threw everything in there.  White rice takes 5 minutes in the instant pot BUT that doesn't include pressurizing time, so it ended up being a 15 minute meal as promised.
P.S. this was hub's idea and I wasn't sure if I would be into it let alone that the kids would be into it...well, surprises all around b/c everyone chowed down.

Meal Prep
A brand new batch of breakfast burritos and I since I had the instant pot out anyway, I made up a wild rice pilaf for lunches.  This recipe used the pot's sautee function and I thought it was interesting that the pot pressurized up really quickly, not sure if it was a fluke or if having the pot up to temperature makes it faster, so stand by while further experiments are conducted.

Watching
  • Treadmill TV: finished the latest season of Call the Midwife on Netflix and I want another season stat.
  • Couch Solo TV: A Few Good Men (first time seeing it, I recently heard Demi Moore's book on Audible)
  • Family TV: Wayne's World!  What can I say, it's held up.  Unfortunately it kind of bombed with the younger members of the family.  Kids these days.
Reading
Finished Ask Again Yes, thumbs up there.  Started Long Bright River.

15 comments:

  1. The instant pot is totally my jam! I make stuff in it at least twice a week...so easy!

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    1. I'd love to hear what you make, I'm looking for ideas

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  2. I love the Instant Pot, you definitely made good use of it last week :) I agree that it definitely comes up to pressure faster if the sautee function was used first.

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    1. Please let me know some of your favorite recipes, b/c I'm definitely looking for ideas.

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  3. I made turkey meatloaf yesterday and tonight we recycled the leftovers into spaghetti sauce. Super yummy. I found a spicy ketchup at Whole Foods, which was a nice change for the meatloaf!

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    1. Meatloaf is always a hit in our house. I need to get some spicy ketchup.

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  4. I just got an instapot and I am still figuring out how to use it!

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  5. The first thing I noticed, whether it was by accident or intentional, is the pads of butter (on the waffles) look like hearts <3 I'm not necessarily a hopeless romantic, but I do have art geek tendencies. Looks like the Instant Pot has been a success!

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    1. Any resemblance to hearts is unintentional but my husband did make breakfast the day after Valentine's Day, so there was a lot of love in the air.

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  6. One of my clients just told me that she made a cheese cake in her insta pot and it turned out great. I had no idea that you could make things like that in insta pots!

    We used to tell our kid how funny Mister Bill was on SNL (back when it was called Saturday Night Live and was funny). Anyway, for Christmas several years ago they got us Mister Bill on DVD. With great anticipation we all watched it together and it fell pretty flat. LOL, I guess it didn't hold up as well as Wayne's World!

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  7. That baked ziti looks yummy! I have not use the Insta pot yet but I have heard you can make so much in it, even desserts!

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    1. The ziti is a favorite in our house, and it's pretty easy to make.

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  8. Yum! What I wouldn't give for a waffle about now! That slow cooker chicken looks amazing too. I spent Valentine's Day traveling to Bermuda so no couples action this year. Oh well.

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