Instant Pot Spicy Sweet and Sour Chicken

Instant Pot Spicy Sweet and Sour Chicken - made October 30, 2019 from Aunt Bee's Recipes

Last week the temps dipped to the teens. And, somewhat oddly, when I checked my weather app when I woke up one morning, it showed 17 degrees as the current temp then promised to drop another 2 degrees at sunrise which was in an hour. Erk. Normally I try to go for a walk in the morning. Yeah, didn't go that morning but waited for the afternoon.

However, cold weather did give me an excuse to break out my Instant Pot. I hadn't used it in awhile since my recipe ADD led me down other cooking paths. But it was just as easy to use as ever.

What made it easier is the directions are for using frozen chicken breasts so you don't even have to plan ahead. Other than shopping for the ingredients. But if you already have chicken breasts lurking in the freezer, haul them out and drop them into the Instant Pot. Then add the rest of the ingredients and walk away for 40 minutes.Voila, dinner.

As the title says, this is a bit spicy. At least for me. However, not set-your-mouth-and-hair-on-fire spicy but just a nice heat, thanks to the red pepper flakes. If you want it more bland, omit the red pepper. But I have pretty bland taste buds and if I don't find it too spicy, it likely won't be too spicy for a normal person.

Overall, I liked the flavor of this dish. As in, it actually had flavor, which isn't something I can always claim when I cook. But this made me feel like I'm getting better at cooking. Even if "cooking" just meant throwing ingredients in the Instant Pot and letting it do its thing. If you're busy and tired from a long day at work, this is a perfect dish to make since it requires such little effort and is pretty tasty too. The nice thing about using the Instant Pot is, even starting with frozen chicken breasts, the chicken came out tender and moist. Smothered in sauce and paired with rice, it makes for a great, easy-to-make dinner.

2 1/2 pounds frozen boneless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, quartered and sliced
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons fresh minced ginger
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water
sesame seeds and green onion for garnish

1. Place chicken in Instant Pot along with sliced onion.
2. Stir together vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, lemon or lime juice, sesame oil, black pepper, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes.
3. Pour mixture over the chicken and onion. Place lid on Instant Pot, with pressure release valve set to closed.
4. Press Manual and set time for 40 minutes. Allow to complete cycle and pressure release naturally. Remove lid and turn Instant Pot off. Remove chicken from the sauce.
5. Combine cornstarch and water and stir into sauce to thicken. Turn Instant Pot to saute and stir until sauce is thickened. Brush over chicken and broil in oven for 1-2 minutes. Pour remaining sauce over chicken.

Grandma's Brownies

Grandma's Brownies - made October 18, 2019 from https://ulasngerti.blogspot.com/

Before I get into this brownie recipe, given it's the day after Halloween and some of you might have leftover candy you want to use up, here's a post I did several years ago that curated some of the recipes you can throw those leftover chocolate bars into. This particular brownie recipe isn't dense enough to really take a chunky Snickers bar but you could always press leftover M&Ms on top of the frosting.

After my last cupcake fail, I needed something a little more surefire of success. Fortunately, brownies are easier to bake successfully at higher altitudes since they don't need to rise (and it would be preferable if they don't) and don't rely on chemical leavening. This recipe doesn't even have any.

Despite that, when I first tried the taste test piece, I was a little ambivalent about the texture on this one. It was moist like any good brownie should be but it wasn't quite as dense as I wanted. It's still more dense than a cake so it's not quite cakey but it isn't as fudgy as my go-to recipe for frosted fudge brownies.

It isn't that I didn't like it but I don't know if I loved it. Fortunately I baked it to take to my niece and her roommate as I was doing a quick trip to visit. So I packaged up most of them to give away. I did set aside - ahem - a couple of pieces for me to snack on during my extended layover though.

It was a good thing I did as it turns out I liked these just fine the next day. Still moist and they seemed to have gotten fudgier overnight. Or else they were just the best option while sitting at the airport waiting for my flight.

Regardless, thumbs up on these. The frosting isn't that thick and it does set quickly so work fast to spread it evenly over the brownie.

3 sticks (24 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup milk
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
3. Whisk together cocoa powder, flour and salt in a bowl. 
4. On low speed, alternately add dry ingredients in three additions and milk in two additions, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined; do not overmix. 
5. Pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing top with offset metal spatula. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool for 30 minutes before frosting.
6. Make frosting: in a saucepan over medium heat, add the butter, milk and granulated sugar. Bring to boil, whisking to combine, and boil for one minute. Remove from heat; stir in salt and chocolate chips. Whisk vigorously until smooth then immediately pour onto warm brownies, spreading before frosting sets. Cool for at least an hour before cutting and serving.

Death by Chocolate Cupcakes

Death by Chocolate Cupcakes - made October 15, 2019 from Sprinkle with Murder by Jenn McKinlay

Every once in awhile, the baking gods like to mock me. As in with a baking fail. Bastards. I had just finished re-reading this book, the first in the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries by Jenn McKinlay. It was a re-read because the first time I read it, I hadn't been tracking my reads on Goodreads yet and while most of the rest of the series was duly logged, this one wasn't. That kinda bugged my sense of series completion since I knew I had already read the first one and it seemed like cheating to backdate that I'd read it, especially since I can't remember when I had first read it and, to be honest, I didn't remember the story that clearly. So I read it again. Problem solved.

As with most culinary cozy mysteries, recipes are included. This one was in the back of the book and I had some milk to use up so it seemed like a good one to try. I haven't been making a lot of cakes since I moved to a higher altitude but I have noticed some recipes are affected more than others. I'm going to assume this is one of the affected ones. The recipe said this made 12 cupcakes. I filled 12 cupcake liners plus 1 extra. 9 of the 13 cupcakes overflowed. Oops.

That's common with high altitude baking as the cakes puff up quickly before their structure is set then sink in the middle. Joy. You know all those food blogs that have perfect looking desserts? Yeah, this isn't one of them. But all was not lost as, despite their sad appearance, these actually tasted quite good. Chocolate flavor was on point because I used a high quality cocoa powder (Droste and Valrhona). The texture was cakey, maybe just the tiniest bit on the dense side but not too much and only because I probably could've baked it an extra minute. I did forget to add the chocolate chips to the batter though but I think it still turned out okay. When it comes to cake, I like mine pretty plain so nothing interferes with that cakey texture.

I didn't frost them with the ganache as listed. They looked kinda sad already and truthfully, I didn't want to waste the heavy cream. Good thing I care more about flavor than appearance.

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until well blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition; stir in vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
4. Portion into cupcake liners. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center of cupcakes comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.

Dark Chocolate Ganache
2 cups dark chocolate chips
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Place chocolate chips in large bowl. Pour cream into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once the cream boils, remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Let stand for 1-2 minutes then stir with a whisk until smooth. 
2. Stir in the vanilla until well blended. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the ganache and allow to cool to room temperature. Dip tops of cooled cupcakes into the ganache and allow to dry.

Baking Meetup #2 - Fall Desserts

Baking Meetup #2 - Fall Desserts
Here are the desserts we had for our second baking meetup. Besides the Apple Pecan Spice Cake that I brought, here was everyone else's contribution. Since it was a Fall theme, there were 2 pumpkin desserts. The Salted Caramel Madeleines are good for autumn and year-round. Everything was delicious and I enjoyed getting to try desserts I don't normally make myself.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Slice of Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake - made by Vikki (note: the frosting recipe below came with the original cake recipe. Vikki used a different recipe but I forgot to get a copy of that one so I'm including the original frosting recipe below)

2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter three 8-inch cake pans and fit each bottom with an 8-inch circle of parchment paper. Lightly butter the parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl; set aside. Combine the buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla in a medium bowl and set aside. 
3. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Alternately add the flour and buttermilk mixtures, blending well after each addition.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and bake until a toothpick inserted near the middle comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, about 35 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans for 20 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and cool completely.
5. Trim the layers. Place one layer on a cake plate and top with one third of the frosting. Spread evenly. Repeat with the second and third layers.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon orange food coloring

1. Blend the cream cheese, butter, orange juice, orange zest and vanilla in a large bowl, using an electric mixer set at medium speed, until smooth. 
2. Add the confectioners' sugar and continue to beat until light and creamy, about 3 more minutes. Add the food coloring and gently stir until the color is uniform. Chill the frosting until ready to ice the cakes.

Salted Caramel Apple Madeleines

Add caption

inside the madeleine

Salted Caramel Apple Madeleines - made by Dawn
2 large eggs
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cinnamon apple sauce

Salted Caramel
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream
sea salt flakes

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray 2 madeleine pans with Bakers Joy (or spray with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour).
2. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs with 2/3 cup granulated sugar until blended. Beat in applesauce and salt. Add flour and beat until blended with mixer on low. Gradually add butter until blended.
3. Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into each shell indentation. Bake for 11-13 minutes.
4. Make the caramel: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt sugar while stirring constantly until a brownish liquid forms.
5. When sugar has completely melted, add butter and stir until well combined.
6. While still stirring, carefully add heavy cream. Once all the cream has been added, let the mixture boil without stirring for one minute.
7. Remove from heat. Stir in salt, transfer to a mason jar and let cool.
8. Dip madeleines into caramel sauce, place on wire rack to harder and sprinkle with sea salt.

Pumpkin Squares

Pumpkin Squares - made by Bonnie
1 cup sifted flour
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 13-ounce can milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 16-ounce can pumpkin puree

Topping
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

1. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar and butter until crumbly, using electric mixer on low speed. Press into ungreased 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.
2. Combine pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, salt and spices in mixing bowl. Beat well and pour onto crust; return to oven and bake for 20 minutes more.
3. Combine pecans, brown sugar and 2 tablespoons butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over pumpkin layer and bake another 15-20 minutes or until filling is set. Cool completely. Cut into squares and serve with whipped topping.

Apple Pecan Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

Apple Pecan Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting - made October 12, 2019 modified from The Recipe Critic

For my second baking meetup (post to follow after this one), the theme was Fall Desserts. While that might mean pumpkin or pumpkin spice for some people, for me, autumn is about apples. That's when they're best in season. Although, truthfully, I eat them year round.

I decided to go with this sheet cake for Apple Pecan Spice Cake since I'd been traveling for the past few weeks, knew I was getting back late on Friday night before the Sunday meetup and I wanted something easy to shop for and make. Which this was.

Although I normally like baked goods to be served same day as much as possible, I made this the day before the meetup as I wanted the cake to develop its flavor overnight and I figured with the apples, there would be sufficient moisture to make sure the cake didn't dry out when consumed a day later. Fortunately, I was right. This cake was pretty moist and made a good fall dessert.

I feel like the only fail was the frosting. I followed the recipe to the letter but the frosting came out really soft, almost runny. I could've countered that by adding more brown sugar but I didn't want the frosting to be too sweet so I tried chilling it instead. Nope, that didn't work. Unlike frostings with confectioners' sugar that help the frosting to "set", brown sugar does not. Still, it wasn't too bad. Oh and I did modify the original recipe to add the pecans as a garnish on top of the frosting instead of incorporating into the cake batter. I'm not a fan of nuts in cakes or cookies or brownies themselves since the nuts soften and steam in baking. In my mind, softened pecan pieces would've detracted from the texture of the cake which was already "lumpy" with the apples. So I toasted the chopped pecans and sprinkled them over the frosted cake instead. It provided an added crunch and toasted pecan flavor that contributed to the fall dessert theme.

4 cups Granny Smith Apples, peeled, chopped into small pieces
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup golden brown sugar
1 cup pecans, lightly toasted, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine apples and sugar. Stir in oil, eggs and vanilla.
3. In another mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add the flour mixture to the apple mixture. Add milk and stir until just combined. 
4. Pour in to the prepared pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool completely.
5. Make the frosting: beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and free of lumps. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla and brown sugar. Beat for 5 minutes until light and fluffy and sugar has dissolved. Spread evenly on top of cake. Garnish with toasted, chopped pecans.

Baking Meetup #1 - Cookies

Baking Meetup #1 - Cookies - held September 15, 2019

Caramel Apple Bars (left), Reese's Chip Cookies (top left) Almond Crescent (top right), Chocolate Chip Cookies (right middle), No Bake Lentil Bars (bottom)

One of the things I wanted to do after I settled into my new house was to start a baking meetup in order to meet other baking-minded people. I had a lot going on over the summer and leading into fall but I finally made the time to set up the meetup and hosted the first one at my house.The idea of the meetup was for each person to bring a dessert they'd made along with the recipe to share with the other members. My original plan was for the members to make a dozen for sharing and a dozen for giving away to a nonprofit. It was a good idea in concept and I still believe in it but, being new to Reno, I hadn't yet established many contacts in the nonprofit world who I knew well enough to make the offer for homemade baked goods. So we settled on just sharing among the attendees for now, although I would still love to establish contacts with nonprofits who could use the desserts.

I originally thought we could do a "baking circle" that my friend and culinary school classmate, Annie the Baker, told me she did. A baking circle has a baker's dozen of 13 members who met regularly. So I capped the limit of the meetup at 13.  In hindsight, I'm not sure how I thought I could eat 13 desserts. So it was a good thing that for the first meetup, we had only 6 members show up. 5 people brought something and the 6th confessed her planned dessert didn't turn out but we were glad to see her anyway. Not just so we could all meet and make new friends but also because we needed more eaters for the 5 dozen desserts that showed up, lol.

This post is light on pictures. I was so busy chatting with my fellow bakers that I forgot (a first for me) to take pictures of each dessert. The only pic I have is the one I took of my own plate. Erk,

Each month's meetup has a baking theme and this first one was Cookies. I wanted something easy to get things started and figured cookies would be easy enough. For my own, I made the ubiquitous chocolate chip cookies but I offered two different kinds to see if people could taste the difference. One was Gideon's Bakehouse Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies that had cake flour and bread flour and the butter was creamed. The other one was the Basic, Great Chocolate Chip Cookies I made for Shyla's wedding and had all-purpose flour and melted butter. It was also a chance for me to make both doughs again and note the differences. I've discovered that while I thought the higher altitude in Reno didn't make much difference to cookies, I've realized it does. Even though I baked from frozen dough like I always do, my cookies are spreading more than when I baked at sea level in the Bay Area. Fortunately, they still tasted good, although no one could really tell the difference between the two. Neither could I.

Here are the other recipes everyone else brought - logging them here even though I don't have decent pictures of them so I can share with everyone else in the meetup who couldn't attend. We held our second baking meetup last weekend and I did a better job of taking pictures there so stay tuned for that post shortly.

from Kim

from Vikki

from Rochelle

from Mary

Shrimp Pad Thai

Shrimp Pad Thai - made September 30, 2019 , modified from Piggy Out

I think pad thai is going to be my go-to dish from now on whenever I want to cook something quick and easy. This recipe is similar to the first one I tried in terms of its ingredients. I substituted tamarind concentrate for the ketchup since I still had some and because I don't like ketchup.

I learned from experience last time and only soaked the rice noodles in tap water, not hot water. When I added it to the pot along with the sauce, that cooked the noodles well enough without making them too mushy like last time. The only mistake I really made is I didn't take the pot off the heat soon enough and the sauce dried up a little.

This pad thai still tasted pretty good but next time, I would remove it from the heat while there were more sauce still coating the noodles. Oh, also, make sure you dissolve the palm sugar in hot water first before adding the rest of the sauce ingredients. Otherwise, nothing really melts the palm sugar and you'll have crunchy bits of sugar in your pad thai, I rectified that for this recipe and it worked pretty well.

14 ounces thin rice noodle
1 cup bean sprouts (I left out)
8 ounces large shrimp
3 eggs, beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized shallot, thinly sliced
2 Thai chilies, thinly sliced (I left out)
2 stalks green onion, chopped
olive oil

Sauce
1/4 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons brown sugar (I used palm sugar)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup (I used tamarind concentrate)

1. Prepare the rice noodles according to the package directions. Drain, add about 3 tablespoons olive oil and mix well to prevent sticking.
2. In a mixing bowl, pour the 1/4 cup boiling water over the palm sugar and stir until dissolved. Whisk together the rest of the sauce ingredients; set aside.
3. Preheat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a wok over medium heat. When hot, add the beaten eggs, stir and cook until soft scrambled. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
4. Increase heat to medium high. Add 2 tablespoons oil.
5. Add garlic, shallot and Thai chili. Stir and cook until fragrant.
6. Add sauce and rice noodles. Toss until the noodles are thoroughly mixed with the sauce. Add shrimp and stir until cooked. Add scrambled eggs and green onions. Serve immediately.