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Tag Archives: pressure cooker

I make! Pressure cooker chicken soup edition

As we all know, I sometimes do ridiculous things. Or actually, the thing itself may not be ridiculous but the motivation behind it might be. Like the time I decorated a cake in my hotel room without even a kitchenette. Or the time I…did other things that are ridiculous but I can’t remember right now. Or the time I make chicken soup solely because the dog was sick.

Yes, I made chicken soup. Totally normal thing to do. Lots of people do this. But why did I make chicken soup? Because Horse was sick.

Yes. Horse. Not any human friend or relative that I knew. I have never made chicken soup for a sick human friend or relative. But my dog, who is a better horse than a dog, who is relatively stupid and annoying, who is clingy to a fault, who is big and clunky and nothing at all like my little princess dog, was sick.

I think Horse had a bad case of kennel cough. I had to board him and Yaris the weekend before and I noticed a few days after picking them up that Horse was clearing his throat a lot. Then it progressed to coughing. Then it progressed to hacking and choking and coughing and vomiting. He actually also had a fever on the worst morning. He looked so pathetic and shivery that I decided to take him to the vet where he got IV fluids and antibiotics (and a chest xray and a blood test and a course of oral antibiotics). I always think it’s funny when dogs have to get an IV. The vet has to shave a little bald spot into their arm. And it looks ridiculous. Hahaha.

Anyway, the vet and I decided that it was most likely that Horse had a bad case of kennel cough over some of the more exotic things that he could have and that he was just going to have to take it easy for a couple of weeks. Horse has no problem with taking it easy. But he still was having issues with coughing. He would cough so much that he would start vomiting. This was incredibly annoying for me, since I had to clean it up. But I’m sure it was also really uncomfortable for him. So I made him some chicken soup in hopes that it might speed his recovery a bit, or at least make him feel a little better. Also…it gave me an excuse to play with the pressure cooker.

I kind of just made up a recipe here involving carrots and celery, dried thyme, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper (basically whatever spices and herbs I had in the pantry), and maybe a 4lb chicken? I forgot exactly how big of a chicken I used. Anyway, I dumped everything into the Instant Pot and cooked under high pressure for 15 minutes and then released the pressure using the quick release valve. When it was cool enough, I pulled all the meat off the chicken, dumped the meat back into the soup, and gave some to Horse (and also Yaris because I would have never heard the end of it if Yaris didn’t get any). I had some too. It was pretty good. I think I like pressure cooker chicken soup over slow cooker chicken soup. And it’s faster.

(Um…I know I had a photo.  But I can’t find it anymore.  Sorry.  Just imagine a bowl of chicken soup right here.  Kthx.)

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I make! Lamb neck stew edition

Right now if I reach blindly into my freezer and pull something out, I’d say there’s an 80% chance that I’ll pull out some kind of salmon.  But this post isn’t about salmon.  It’s about lamb neck.  Because before pulling out all of the lamb neck in the freezer, I’d say there was an 18% chance that I’d pull out lamb neck in were I to blindly reach into the freezer and grab something.  Because…my mother.

So, I’ve been trying to get rid of lamb neck.  But lamb neck is kind of a weird cut of…meat(?) to work with.  It’s pretty easy to figure out what to do with chops or ribs or something, but what about lamb neck?  Well, I opted for stew.

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I did a fairly standard stew with things that go well with lamb.  I coated the lamb neck (about 2lb) in flour (about 0.33c) and then browned them (I used an electric pressure cooker, which has a sear function) and took them out.  With the leftover fat in the pot, I sautéed a bunch of chopped celery, carrots, and onions (whatever I had on hand) and then coated the vegetables with the rest of the flour leftover from dredging the lamb.  Added some chopped potatoes (also whatever I had on hand), salt, pepper, dried thyme (about 2tsp).  I nestled the lamb on top of the vegetables and then added 3-4c of chicken stock and a bunch of Worcestershire sauce.  I cooked it on high pressure for about 45min.  I’m really liking the pressure cooker guys.  But I’ve also done it on the slow cooker before, 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.  But seriously.  Pressure cooker.

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I ended up serving it with focaccia and salad.