Ode to the Instant Pot

Last year I became the owner of an Instant Pot. If you have never heard of the phenomenon which is the Instant Pot you're either Amish, a time traveler, or technology deprived!

Let me back up and say I had over $100 in Amazon credit which had built up (a perk of being an Allrecipes Allstar!) and I could have easily purchased an Instant Pot. I rebelled against the fad though, after all, my first time to use an updated stove top model pressure cooker resulted in my lovely roast looking like a prehistoric rock! Don't judge!

I reluctantly became an owner of an Instant Pot - did I just say that? Yes, I did. You see I won my Instant Pot in an Allrecipes Allstar Contest. When it arrived I briefly contemplated selling it, after all I live alone, and I have an apartment sized kitchen. So it sat in the box...and hibernated. 

About a week later I was looking at my instant pot - I decided to unpack it and I used it! I've now owned my instant pot and have converted MANY non-IP recipes. The latest...Spaghetti and meatballs! Yummo!!! 

Note to say - I make my pasta by hand and did not use the instant pot to cook the noodles, although I could have. So now you have the meatball recipe, and here's how I made the meatballs... I used the ingredients called for BUT also poured Bertolli spaghetti sauce over the meatballs along with 1/3 cup water, and cooked them on low pressure for 15 minutes before doing a quick release! How amazing is this...dinner start to finish in under 30 minutes!!!

A return to blogging

Where do I even begin? I took a LONG break from blogging for a variety of reasons, namely I don't have regular readers, I blog mainly for myself and thus my absence wasn't noticed.
Do I want regular readers, sure who doesn't, but I also want to hear from those who may actually read my blog...pretty please?! In my attempt to return to blogging, I'll share a quick highlight from 2016!

Featuring...thedailygourmet

One of the coolest things about being an Allstar is getting to know other Allstars. We all are passionate about food. What a cool find in the June newsletter. My submission to their QA was featured! If you're a regular visitor, or not I'm sharing so you can get to know me a little bit better. (Click the picture to enlarge) :)

Pretzels galore

In April I posted a blog about an assignment I had involving pretzels. Snack Factory® Pretzel Crisps®. asked the Allstars to create some recipes using their product. Normally, I would jump for joy, but not when my creativity is restricted. 

My two bags of pretzel crisps were actually pretzel crumbs. This was a challenge because any recipe we created required us to keep the pretzels intact. I thought about a sweet and salty effect and decided to go with an S'mores style recipe. I chose to create recipes that served just one. If I learned anything it is simply the Snack Factory company needs to re-think their packaging and use a sleeve-style package in order to keep their product whole.

My recipe for "Sarah's I want S'more pretzel crisps" can be found here.

Crunchy pretzel pieces

Earlier this month I was tasked with the assignment of creating a custom recipe for Snack Factory® Pretzel Crisps®. While I can't share the recipes just yet, I will take the time to give my opinion on the product.

The company wanted us to keep the pretzels whole - after all, the pretzel crisp is the star product. Unfortunately, the company does not have sturdy packaging. Out of TWO bags of pretzel crisps, I was fortunate to have around 20 whole crisps.

This picture of broken pretzels is from ONE bag of pretzel crisps. Ultimately I was not happy with the limitation on creativity. I could have found many uses for the broken pretzels whether it be pretzel crusted chicken nuggets, a pretzel cheesecake crust, peanut butter pretzel bars etc.,
Naturally I either would discard the broken pieces, but instead, I elected to make the famous strawberry pretzel salad and no it's not a salad in the traditional sense, but it's tasty.

I do not know if I will ever buy the snack factory pretzels again. They may be a healthy alternative to most snack food, but they're not for me. I think the company needs to rethink their packaging. It's rather deceptive to see stacks of whole pretzels on their package and to have the contents look like the bag had been drop-kicked.

Inviting Knorr to dinner

This month has been amazing! I am once again working with Knorr, and this time it's not creating a recipe, but I am using their product to make dinner, and let me say they have some delicious dinners!

DIY - Round two

Have you ever looked at the ingredients that go into food? Well aside from being able to source food locally, often the only thing you can do is try to make it yourself.