Chia Seeds and Instant Pot Pancake

Everybody is all crazy for two things these days: chia seeds and the Instant Pot. I recently started using both! I got the chia seeds at Aldi's (great deal!) and the Instant Pot for my birthday.

My favorite way to use the chia seeds is in my daughter's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It adds protein and fiber and she has no idea they're even in there! I sprinkle them on the jelly side because they blend in with the strawberry seeds then. The peanut butter side makes them a little more obvious and she did ask about them once then. But honestly, she doesn't even taste them but she's getting added nutrition! Isn't that awesome?

I also throw them in my smoothies, oatmeal, or baked goods too. They're very versatile!

Now for the Instant Pot. I've only made a handful of things in it so far. I have never owned a pressure cooker before and this does so much more than that! For those of you who haven't heard of this, it's an electronic pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice maker, saute-er, steamer, yogurt maker! This thing does it all. It can easily replace your microwave and all the appliances listed above.

One thing to keep in mind is when a recipe says it'll take 5 minutes of cook time, if you are using the pressure cooker feature, add in about 10 extra minutes because it'll need to come up to pressure and then you'll have to slowly release the pressure. Both of these things take time. However, even with that extra time, this thing can cook so fast!

For Mother's Day, my husband used it (yes! It'll get your husband to cook for you!!) to make one giant pancake that served our family of 4 plus leftovers. This pancake is huge! It has a slightly crunchy top. I loved it but if you don't, you can easily peel it off. It's about as thick as cornbread or a cake! It tastes a little bit like cornbread too but I'm not sure why. I wouldn't call it a pancake so if you are expecting regular pancakes, you probably won't like this but it is good nonetheless! Start to finish, including gathering ingredients, took about 1 hour.

Now if you're like me you're probably thinking an hour????? Are you nuts?? It's just a pancake! I can make the regular kind in half that time (or less!). But let me ask you this. How much of that 20 minutes is spent slaving over the hot stove top, away from your family? You're totally stuck in the kitchen aren't you? With the instant pot, you measure out ingredients and set the pot. It takes 5 minutes or less and then you are free to go do whatever you want, like keeping an eye on the kids. It beeps and breakfast is done!

Now this isn't the kind of recipe I'd make for breakfast all the time because I don't want to wait an hour to eat ( but since my husband let me sleep in while the pancake cooked, it worked out perfectly). But for dinner?? Set it and forget it? It's great! It doesn't heat up your kitchen on hot summer days, it doesn't have you stuck in the kitchen all afternoon, and when it's all done, it's super easy clean up (the pot part can go in the dishwasher. Spot clean the housing and lid as needed).

I will also definitely be making the pancake again, maybe for brunch!

Hidden Kraut Spinach Burgers and Roasted Veggies

Tonight I made hidden spinach and kraut burgers that were awesome! The blogger talks about paleo and AIP but I don't follow that. I don't even know what AIP is. So I did change a couple of the ingredients. I also didn't serve them on those butternut squash roll things but they do look good!

This is what I made:
2 pounds ground beef
2 handfuls spinach
~2 cups sauerkraut
3/4 cup milk
~1/3 cup breadcrumbs (I would've used a little more too but I ran out. Next time, I might just do oats)
onion powder
garlic powder
salt
parsley

Then I followed the instructions (blend spinach, sauerkraut, milk in blender til smooth. Dump in bowl, add spices. Mix. Add meat and breadcrumbs. Mix. Make patties and bake at 400 for 25 minutes).

The original poster got 5-6 patties out of this but those must've been HUGE because I made what I thought were huge and I still got 9.

I will also mention that the end result is not green! There are tiny flecks of green (that could be the parsley) and it leaks out a little green but if you don't tell anyone, there is no way they could guess that there is spinach and sauerkraut in there! I was truly amazed!!

I served this with roasted radishes and brussels sprouts. These turned out great too. I tossed with oil, seasoned with a little salt and thyme and then baked at 400 (because the burgers were 400) for 20ish minutes. I don't even normally like radishes but roasting them makes them so much better (and not spicy!).

The meal tonight was fantastic! I will definitely be making both of these dishes again and again!!

Kielbasa Sauerkraut Noodle Casserole

For dinner tonight, I made this recipe with a few changes. I've actually been making a lot of sauerkraut recipes lately because even though it isn't my favorite, we got 3 94 serving cans of it from Ruby's Pantry. That's a lot of servings! It does last a long long time but we have to eat it eventually. Besides, sauerkraut is actually good for you. Some people even put it on their list of "super foods".

So here are the modifications I made:

1 box of bow tie noodles (although the shape of noodle doesn't seem to matter)
4-5 cups of sauerkraut, drained
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
3 cups of milk
1 1/2 cups cheese (I wanted to use the cheddar but all I had was mozzarella)
2 tablespoons cream cheese
paprika
garlic powder
onion powder
couple squirts of mustard (I actually used this weird mustard relish stuff. The relish is very minimal but the flavor is there)
ring of Kielbasa

Then I followed the directions but since I had so many more noodles and sauerkraut, I used a 5 qt casserole dish. I also added the spices to the cheese sauce, when the cheese was starting to melt. I was very generous in adding the seasonings also, because some of the commentators from the original said it was a little bland.

I thought it still needed something (salt? I never add salt to my cooking it seems) but David rated this a 9 or 10. I also wonder how much of a difference the cheddar cheese would have made. I'll definitely make it again though and this is a very reasonable way to eat sauerkraut, even if you don't like sauerkraut!

Fluffy, Tofu Pancakes

A while back from Ruby's Pantry we were given Nigari tofu. It's a super soft, sweet tofu that is pretty much useless in a stir fry. I don't know about you but when I think tofu, I think stir fries. So I had to do a little more research. I had previously used one package in a chocolate mousse kind of thing and that turned out really good. I froze the rest of the tofu and kind of forgot about it.

Then I found this recipe and it was amazing! Since I had to look up the conversions for all the ingredients, I'll list them here:

1 block of nigari tofu
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup flour
3/4 cup milk (could use soy milk to make these vegan)
1/4 cup sugar
a couple drops of vanilla extract

Mix the tofu, milk, and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet until combined. Then make pancakes as normal (heat up your pan, add pancake batter, cook until bubbles pop, flip).

These turned out really super good. They were easy with a quick prep (cooking pancakes always takes me FOREVER. I got 15 pancakes out of this, made two at a time, and it still took almost 40 minutes to get them all cooked). I will definitely make again if I ever have more tofu to use up!

Carrot Cheese Crackers

Oh my goodness has it been a long time since I blogged! My computer was having some crazy issues and then I just got more and more behind. I am missing so many recipes I have made in the past few months and sadly, I will not be able to blog about them. When I don't blog a recipe shortly after making it, I forget all my specifications and notes to myself. How sad!

Well, today I made some crackers. They're supposed to be comparable to Cheez-Its and I think they are close enough. My husband said they taste like "under-cooked noodles, but that's a good thing! I liked them!" so...who knows.

I found the recipe here but I didn't exactly follow it.

For the carrots, a long time ago I had tried to make a carrot puree for my toddlers to enjoy in a pouch that was much too watery and chunky to be considered a puree. I froze it all in ice cube trays anyway and have been using it up slowly in sauces, burgers, casseroles, etc. I thawed about 15 ice cubes worth for the carrot part of these crackers.

So I put my carrot stuff in a bowl, added 2 eggs, and a big handful of cheese (and then my toddler added a handful of cheese--just for good measure!) and stirred it all up. I didn't use a mixer or food processor at all. I added the flour (I used white, not whole wheat) 1/4 cup at a time. The last 1/4 cup I should've added the whole thing but for some reason I thought my dough was thick enough. It was so sticky though so I had a really hard time getting cracker shapes out of a lot of it. So I made about 40 crackers and then a big pile of mush.

I would definitely make these again. Both of my toddlers loved them (even after knowing there were carrots in there!). Next time, I'll try not to forget to sprinkle on salt before they go in the oven but it actually wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. Now I have a better use for my weird carrot ice cubes!

Kielbasa, Potato, Green Bean Dinner

At Ruby's Pantry this past month, we were given a 24 serving can of green beans. The can is one of those ones you find in the bulk aisle at Walmart. It's crazy big. We were also given a few purple potatoes and beef broth.

Tonight, I decided to combine 1 pound of kielbasa (not from Ruby's), about 1/4 of the can of beans, a couple handfuls of the purple potatoes, and 2 ish cups of beef broth in a slow cooker. I put it on low for 8 hours and it turned out wonderful, if not a little salty. (The beans were even reduced sodium but that is still a lot of sodium for a dinner!)

We were all surprised that the purple potatoes turned yellow-ish brown, like a regular potato!

I love slow cooker dinners, especially on busy nights. Dinner is already ready for you! There is little prep work to this one so it was even do-able with little kids. When I explained to my two and a half year old at breakfast time that I needed to make dinner, she looked at me like I was nuts and called me silly. But she gladly helped anyway. I don't know that she's actively seen me use the slow cooker before though because she thought it was going to be loud (like a blender) and was really confused when it wasn't! Several times throughout the day, she asked me if it was time to eat yet--probably because slow cookers make the house smell so good!

I will definitely be making this again. I would somehow find a way to reduce the salt and maybe I'd add an onion but it really doesn't need much in terms of seasonings without being bland! This dinner was easy and awesome!

Sweet Potato BBQ Chicken Pizza

I'm behind in my blogging (again) so I actually made this pizza a few weeks ago. We were nervous how it would turn out because it sounded healthy (ha!) and nobody but me really likes sweet potatoes.

I did take the crust out of the oven a couple minutes early because it was browning and I didn't want it to burn.

I also cooked the spinach (when I cooked the onions) because it had previously been frozen and I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I don't know that it matters if it's cooked or uncooked, regardless of being frozen. I will also mention that I didn't measure the sauces. I simply each one out separately on the crust until it looked good. This could've been close to a half cup but it did leave a lot of tomato sauce in the jar so be ready to have spaghetti the next night!

This pizza turned out great! Being cheeseless, I'm not sure I would eat it because I was craving pizza and trying to be healthier but I would eat it again. It's just not a good replacement for the real thing. Even David liked it. My toddler hates sweet potatoes too so she wasn't impressed, but she did like the toppings.  My mom was in town and thought it was really good also!

I would definitely make it again!