Recipe: Instant Pot Chicken Barley Chili

​White meat, whole grain, a little bit of spice -- yes, please!

Chicken Barley Chili is a recipe that I cut off the back of the Quaker barley box many years ago. As I was getting out my ingredients in the morning and pushing my Instant Pot aside to make room the thought occurred to me, instead of simmering on the stovetop for 40 - 60 minutes why not just throw everything in the Instant Pot and give it a go! And that's just what I did with delicious results.

Instant Pot Chicken Barley Chili

     Serves: 6-8

     Total time: ~45mins 

Ingredients

- 1 cup of pearled barley

- 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained

- 1 jar (16oz) salsa

- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into serving size chunks

- 1 Tbs chili powder

- 1.5 tsp cumin

- 3-4 cups of water or chicken broth (see Notes)

- 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

- 1 cup frozen corn or 1 can of whole kernel corn, drained 

Directions

1. Add all ingredients to the inner pot except for the black beans and corn. Stir to combine

2. Lock cover into place and seal the steam nozzle.

3. Press [Manual] and set timer for 10 minutes.

4. Allow for natural pressure release of 15 minutes. Manually release any remaining pressure and open pot.

5. Stir in the black beans and corn and allow to heat through for about 5 minutes.

6. Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro and diced green chilies as desired.

Notes

• I like my Chili pretty thick, more like a stew. This recipe is in between a soup and a stew as far as liquidness.  If you want a thick stew, use just 3 cups of added liquid.  If you are looking for a soupier consistency, use 4 cups. 

Recipe: Instant Pot Porcupine Meatballs

Was Black Friday/Cyber Monday good to you?  Did you finally buy the Instant Pot you've had on your Amazon wishlist for months?  If so, congratulations! 

You may find once you've unboxed your new prize and quickly skimmed the owner's manual/recipe book that comes with it that it is sorely lacking in recipes that you'd actually include in your meal rotation.  Never fear, I've got another classic to share with you today.

This recipe falls under the nostalgia category for me (much like Sausage and Rice Casserole).  Porcupine Meatballs is the only reason that I had a pressure cooker on my wedding registry.  I fondly remember my mom making it when I was growing up and knew that she cooked it in her original stovetop pressure cooker.  The recipe came from the Presto Pressure Cooker cookbook included with the pressure cooker.  The original recipe has a tomato based sauce; my mom made it with a cream based sauce and so do I.

Instant Pot Porcupine Meatballs
    serves: 4-6
    time: ~35 minutes

Ingredients
- 1lb of ground beef
- 0.5 cups of white rice, uncooked
- 1 cup of Pictsweet Seasoning Blend (frozen) or fresh diced onion and celery
- 1 packet dried onion soup mix
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 cup of water

Directions
1. In a mixing bowl, combine the ground beef and uncooked white rice.  Season as desired with salt and pepper.  Form into small meatballs, 1-1.5" diameter.
2. In the inner pot, mix together the remaining ingredients.
3. Place meatballs on top of soup/vegetable mixture.
4. Lock cover into place and seal the steam nozzle.
5. Press [Manual] and set timer for 8 minutes.
6. Allow to [Keep Warm] for 10 minutes then turn off the release any remaining pressure.
7. Serve over cooked white rice.

Notes

• the name "porcupine" is derived from the fact that the uncooked rice with poke out of the meatballs once cooked
• plan ahead and cook your rice for serving in the Instant Pot prior to cooking your porcupine meatballs.
• The Pictsweet Seasoning Blend is a great time saver -- it's a pre-chopped, frozen blend of onions, celery, green and red peppers and parsley flakes.  Look for it with frozen vegetables.
• This recipe is a great way to use of any leftover vegetables you might have in the refrigerator.  You'll notice my picture of the finished plate has quite a few carrots.  At the time, I had about 1/2 a bag of baby carrots which had passed their lunchbox prime so I diced them up and added them to the mix!

Grocery Store Strategies

This week's posts are all about food -- deciding what to make, buying it, and then making it.  Yesterday I shared my Meal Planning Tips; today is all about Grocery Shopping, tomorrow I'll share links to some of my favorite quick dinner meals!

It feels almost silly to put some of my "tips" into writing because I feel like you'll read them and say "well, duh Courtney, of course!"  BUT I didn't figure some of these things out until the past couple years and I've been grocery shopping for far longer than that so here goes...

-- Have an organized list
    Lots of folks have lists but to truly master the art of an effective and minimally stressing grocery trip you need to have a list that is actually organized.  Once I've shopped a particular grocery store long enough, I generally have a solid understanding of the layout.  So write your list based on the layout of the store.  Group things together that will be together.  If you aren't sure where something is going to be write it at the top and make sure you're always on the look out.
    A second layer to your list organization is noting any coupons you have or need to check.  I usually go through my coupons prior to my trip and pull the ones I know that I am going to use but sometimes there is an item for which I'll have multiple brand coupons (hello cereal aisle) so I need to check and see which offers me the best deal.

An organized list can save you valuable time and money in the grocery store.

-- Don't shop hungry OR dehydrated
    Not shopping hungry helps prevent those stomach growling impulse buys but I find that I need to make sure that I'm not dehydrated either.  Instead of getting hangry I get cloudy and my brain doesn't seem to work quite as well.  All of a sudden determining the cheapest item has me standing in the aisle doing fuzzy math and wondering why it is taking so long.  Another tips I learned from Melissa d'Arabian is to pop a mint or piece of gum just as you go into the store so that you have a clean taste in your mouth and you're less likely to be enticed by the aromas of the bakery, samples, etc.

-- Know your price points
    There are certain items that unless I am in absolute dire straits I will not buy unless they are at or below a certain price especially because I know that if I wait until next week or next month, said item is going to go on sale.  For example, $2/box for Nutrigrain bars is my price point.  If it is $2.71/box, unless I have a coupon, I'm not buying.  Now, when they are on sale for $2/box I stock up and buy a whole bunch [it's how we survive church service with a 2 year old!]  $1.99/lb for pork loin or porkchops is another price point.  That is the going rate at Sam's Club (which mine will cut the giant pork loin into chops for free if you ask the butcher!) so unless it is on sale for less during my usual grocery run, it's not getting bought.

-- Shop the store strategically
    Resist the urge to go right!  Grocery stores are pretty much all designed to encourage the natural inclination to go right which usually leads you straight into the produce, bakery and quick foods section.  Resist!!  Go straight for the middle aisles.  Get your canned goods, jars of sauces, boxes of cereal, toiletry items and then head into the Dairy and Eggs.  Get what you need from there and then head back toward produce along the back wall of the store.  This is most likely where all the meats are.  Grab those on the way and stack them together or place on the carriage under the basket (no leaky meat!).  Top your cart off with all those delicate produce items and then head to checkout since you'll be back near the front of the store.


That's all I got folks, I hope that you can use some of these tips on your next grocery trip to make things just a little bit less stressful!

My Meal Planning Tips

This week is all about food and what it takes to get food on the table.  For me, grocery shopping is a minimum two day process with the first step in the process being MEAL PLANNING.

I'll be honest, I didn't really start taking meal planning to heart until I had my second child and my husband was deployed for a year.  All of a sudden, I had two little people to take care of, one of whom was very needy, and I myself couldn't just get by on goldfish and chicken nuggets for a year waiting for another set of adult hands to free me for a leisured dinner prep.  I realized and began to utilize the sacred naptime for dinner prep as well as discovering a range of freezer cooking recipes.

The biggest part of planning is actually writing something down!  For me, I have found that the standard vertical monthly calendar from Printfree.com is absolutely perfect.  There is enough space to write in an entree as well as note any activities and it's a single sheet of paper which takes of little space and is easy to reference.  I think it's very important to annotate your family's activities and commitments on the meal plan because when filing in dinners you can quickly know that on Wednesday evenings you need a crockpot, scoop and serve or other quick meal so that you can eat as soon as you get home from sports practice.

Monthly calendars, a document protector and a magnetic clip make meal planning painless.

My secret weapon in meal planning calendars is that I keep them for one year (yep, a whole 12 months) in a document protector that is clipped to the side of my fridge.  That way, when November 2016 is coming around, I can pull out November 2015 and remember some of my seasonal favorites that might have been forgotten through the previous months of summer cooking.  At the bottom of the calendar I also might note recipes that interest me or that I remember from previous months so that I have them in a visual queue for the next time I'm planning meals.

There aren't really any right and wrong ways to meal plan.  For me, I like to write out at least 2 weeks worth of meals (we are fortunate to have a chest freezer and second refrigerator) so that I can really stock up when I take a trip to the grocery store.  I also schedule a vegetarian meal once per week as well as a meal that involves fish or seafood (a great meal to have the night before trash day so you don't have to worry about salmon skin or shrimp tails sitting around for too long).  Also, I try and update the  meal plan based on what we actually ate.  This helps me know that I still have a particular freezer meal available or that I didn't actually serve burgers twice in one week.  Finally, I have a mini-white board that is stuck to the front of the fridge where that week's menu is written.  This helps me immediately know what I'm serving so I can consider what prep work might need to be done as well as making sure I have meat thawed and ready to go for future meals.

What's for dinner? Look and see for yourself!

Come back tomorrow and I'll be discussing Grocery Store Strategies so that the necessary chore doesn't have to be a necessary evil!