Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Also makes for a good wrap. Ever since Jess confessed that he really doesn't like tempeh, I've been searching for a good alternative to  buffalo tempeh . I've been eager to make chickpeas in the instant pot, so I was excited when I saw this  Kitchen Treaty recipe  for buffalo chickpea salad. First of all, chickpeas that have been cooked from dry beans are SO much better than canned chickpeas. It's night and day. I actually snacked on some chickpeas plain, straight from the instant pot. I will be making many more chickpea recipes now that I can make good ones so easily. In the original recipe, she outlines instructions for just sauteeing the chickpeas but she mentions that she used to go to the trouble of roasting the chickpeas to get them crispier. I sauteed them and thought they were good, but the idea of crispy roasted buffalo chickpeas, especially in the context of a salad, sounds worthwhile. I will roast them next time and update this post accordingly

Makes this many, minus the ones I ate while rolling them. This recipe (which is not healthy-ish by any stretch of the imagination) comes from my friend's friend's mom. We all did Christmas Eve together throughout my childhood, and as soon as I was old enough to try the rum balls, I was hooked. It's easy with the help of a food processor. The hardest part is not snacking on too many nilla wafers before it's time to make them, and then not having enough to complete the recipe. They keep well in the fridge or freezer. The Recipe: 2 1/2 c vanilla wafers, crumbled (this takes just less than one box's worth) 1 c chopped pecans, food-processed into a crumble 2 tb cocoa powder 1 c powdered sugar 1 stick butter, softened or melted 1/4 c rum 3 tb honey About 1 c granulated sugar, for dusting Mix crumbs, cocoa, sugar, nuts, and butter Add rum and honey Refrigerate one hour Roll into 1-inch balls Roll in granulated sugar The Verdict: Overall

My technique has room for improvement, but they held together. I have never succeeded with make-ahead burritos before, because the rice always dried out and got weird. But then I saw  this recipe from Kitchen Treaty  and realized the secret - mixing the rice together with wet ingredients. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, and it was perfect. The original recipe gives options for adding chicken or omitting cheese, neither of which I did. The only change I needed to make was discovered after I used up my last tortilla and I still had half of the filling left. Maybe I could have stretched more filling into each burrito, but I like them the way I filled them, so I just modified my recipe below to use more tortillas. I also used a bit of extra cheese. I used this recipe for the refried beans: http://healthyishpseudofoodie.blogspot.com/2017/12/refried-black-beans-instant-pot.html The Recipe: 2c refried beans 2c cooked brown rice 1c salsa (I used restau

I'm not sure how to make refried beans look photogenic. These are delicious and easy. I made them to go in burritos, but I will likely make them again as a side dish. I will try to remember to take a picture next time, before I do something like hide them in burritos. It came from a variety of online recipes, modified to suit the ingredients we had. I would still like to experiment with this as a one-pot dish, maybe sauteeing the onion and garlic first in the instant pot, then adding the beans, and cooking it all together. But this was easy enough. The Recipe: 1c dried black beans, rinsed 1/2 onion, peeled 1 bay leaf 3 c water 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste 1 tb vegetable oil 1 onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 3 pickled jalapeno slices, minced Put the beans, 1/2 onion, bay leaf, 1/2 tsp salt, and water in the instant pot. Pressure cook for 35 minutes, then wait for it to naturally release. Discard the bay leaf and onion. Saute the onion

I'll replace the ugly steamy picture if I remember one day. I have spent a lot of time searching Pinterest for more Instant Pot recipes, and this one came up with good reviews. The flavors are super vibrant and it's so, so healthy. And much to my surprise, it's toddler-approved! I served it alongside latkes, and he ate absolutely none of his latkes but finished his soup. Go figure. I minced all of the vegetables in the food processor to get them very very fine, because I'm opposed to having pieces of mushy vegetables in my soup. My only change to the original recipe is that I lowered the amount of salt because I used regular (not low-sodium) vegetable broth.  The Recipe (taken from  Kitchen Treaty ): 2 tb olive oil 1/2 yellow onion, minced 2 carrots, minced 1 stalk celery, minced 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 tsp cumin 1 tsp turmeric 1 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste 1/4 tsp pepper 1c dry brown lentils, rinsed 4c vegetable

Tastes better than it looks. I realize that this is the kind of thing I should probably be able to do without a recipe, but the seasoning was so good this time that I'm going to write it out as a guide, to be modified by what vegetables I have on hand. The Recipe: 2 tb olive oil 2 onions, quartered 3 stalks celery, including leaves, cut into chunks 3 carrots, cut into chunks 8 cloves garlic, smashed parsley or carrot tops 4 sprigs thyme 3 bay leaves 2 sprigs rosemary 6 quarts water 3 tsp salt Put everything in dutch oven. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 2-3 hours. Cool, and drain out the solids.

Beauuutiful. My mother-in-law makes a really good raw cranberry relish (with apple and orange), so I haven't had cooked cranberry sauce in a few years. But I started seeing some recipes for making it in the INSTANT POT and since I had some leftover gravy to use up, I decided it was a good excuse to try another instant pot recipe. I went with this  Zen and Spice recipe  because it looked easy and because I was excited about the cinnamon. The cinnamon was a good call. It makes it feel really warm and rich, instead of just sweet and acidic like sometimes cranberry sauce is. I'll be making this again. The Recipe: (Taken from  Zen and Spice ): 12 oz fresh cranberries, rinsed 1 granny smith apple, diced 1 orange, zested and juiced 1/2 c sugar 2 tb maple syrup 1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp sea salt Place cranberries, apple, orange zest, and orange juice in instant pot.  Pressure cook for 1 minute. Natural release for 7 minutes. Change to Saute setting, and mix in t

Now I want to eat more of them. This recipe is not even remotely healthy. But it's really delicious, and there is a time and place for brownies, and I want to make sure I never lose this recipe. I've actually been making this recipe since college. I think my junior year roommate found it, and we were on board because it's easy and it was labeled  Best Brownies , which seemed like it couldn't be bad. They are super rich and chocolatey and decadent. They keep well, and taste best on the 2nd or 3rd day, if you can possibly wait that long to finish them.  On a whim for a holiday party, I added some peppermint extract to the fudge topping, and it was a success. I bet other flavors (orange? almond? HAZELNUT?) would work too. The Recipe: (taken from  AllRecipes.com ) 1/2c butter 1c sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/3c unsweetened cocoa powder 1/2c flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp baking powder For the frosting: 3 tb butter 3 tb unsweetened coco