Food Friday - Beef Stew

This past weekend the bf and I went to his parents house and were given two HUGE carrots that they had grown in their garden.  Immediately I thought it would be perfect to use in beef stew!

Now my mom has always made her beef stew in a pressure cooker, and that is how I make mine.  I have a horribly written recipe and must rewrite it so that it is understandable to people other than me.

So I went to the store and bought all of the necessities:
~a roast
~potatoes, onion, and cabbage

I already had the bullion cubes, garlic powder, carrots, and tin foil.  I decided I wanted to add in fresh garlic this time too.

Look at how HUGE this thing is!!!

There was also a little bitty one too.

Now I don't have pictures of the first part because I was dumb and forgot.

First in the pressure cooker you want to brown the meat on all of the sides.  Then put in some water about 1/2 way up the meat, the bullion cubes, and the seasonings.  Put the burner on high and wait for the top to start shaking fast.  Turn the burner down to Med-Med High for one and a half hours.

Once the timer goes off place the pressure cooker under running water to bring the pressure down (wait for the pressure tab to release).

Then open the top to see your wonderfully cooked meat!

Now the potatoes, carrots, onion, and cabbage should be chopped up (any shape desired).

The bf does not really like onions so I was going to do a trick that my mom used to do when my sisters and I didn't like onions either.  You place the onion pieces into a tin foil and place the tin foil on top of the other veggies in the pot.  So all of the onion pieces stay together and do not end up mingling with the other veggies.

I made the mistake of cooking the onion whole.  Make sure it is cut into smaller pieces or it will not cook all of the way.

The onion all wrapped up.

I did the same thing with the cabbage.  The bf doesn't really like that either.  But for me it is not beef stew unless there is some cabbage in there.

The veggies should be put on top and around the meat (and should only go up 3/4 of the way up the pot... you can see I didn't follow that rule).  I moved the meat around to make sure that it was not sticking to the bottom of the pot.

This is what it looked like after it was finished cooking.  For some reason I didn't take a shot after I put the veggies in.

Place the pressure cooker back on the burner on high.  Get the top shaking fast again, lower the heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes.  After that place the pot under running water to allow the pressure to release, open and enjoy!!

I will eventually rewrite that recipe and when I do I will make sure to post it for you.

Food Friday - Pressure Cooker Stuffed Peppers

First of all I have to say - THESE WERE AMAZING!!!  Okay, now that that is out of the way I can explain what we did. :)

I had wanted to make stuffed peppers in the crockpot for over a week.  It was getting to the point where if I didn't make them soon the peppers would not be good anymore.  Well Tuesday was the day, but I didn't have enough time to cook them in the crockpot so I decided to cook them in the pressure cooker.  I went to the store and bought the meatloaf mix from the Italian Pie Publix recipe.

So basically you will need the ingredients for the meat mixture: Some Italian Seasoning and...

Bruschetta and diced pimentos

Frozen Spinach

Chopped turkey pepperoni and salami

Meatloaf meat mix (it is pork and beef)

Red peppers (or whatever color is preferred)

Cook all of the meat mixture ingredients together.

We also cooked up some Quinoa instead of rice and ended up using some spaghetti sauce on the peppers.

While that is cooking you can start cutting up the peppers.  Cut out the insides of the pepper and do not throw away the top.

Stuff the pepper with the meat mixture and the quinoa (or rice).

Put the peppers in the pressure cooker.  I put some spaghetti sauce at the bottom with a little bit of water so that the peppers would not burn on the bottom.

I placed a little bit more spagetti sauce and water around the peppers and added some sauce on top.  We even added in a few potatoes in there.  Place the tops of the peppers back on.

Close the pressure cooker.  I put it on high until the top got shaking very fast then I turned it down to medium high for 17 minutes.

The silver button being up means it has been pressurized!

Then to bring down the pressure after the timer goes off, I place the pot under cool water until the pressure releases.

Then I get to open it up and see the goodness!!!

CLOSE UP!!!

 Here is my pepper with the little potatoes we put in there.  It was soooooooooooo good.  The bf does not like peppers and he ate most of the pepper!

If you want to try it out and have questions let me know!!

Have a great Friday!