Easy Mu Shu Pork in the Instant Pot

Easy Instant Pot Mu Shu Pork is a simple meal consisting of pork, cabbage, and eggs seasoned with plummy hoisin sauce and served with a Chinese pancake. Skip the restaurant and control your own ingredients by making this quick dish!

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Do you like Egg Roll in a Bowl? You'll like this variation!

When I learned about Egg Roll in a Bowl--the fast & easy method of using a couple of bags of coleslaw mix in place of chopping AllTheThings--I thought it would be perfect for my Instant Pot on Campus series. This series consists of recipes that use few ingredients with simple preparation, and I spent the summer teaching my son several recipes before sending him off with an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker to start his own Instant Pot on Campus adventures. You can find my other Instant Pot on Campus recipes here.



After I made the Egg Roll in a Bowl recipe I realized how, with a couple of tweaks, I could re-create my favorite Chinese restaurant dish--Mu Shu Pork. The Mu Shu Pork I get in Chinese restaurants has mushrooms in it, but not every eater in my household likes mushrooms. That's the beauty of cooking at home--you can customize your meals to your eaters' tastes.

Fish Taco Naan Pizza

A fast and easy fresh tasting pizza this simple naan crust is topped with mahi mahi, sautéed Napa cabbage, avocados, watermelon radishes, and crumbled queso.

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If you're cooking, you will organically move to a healthier diet . . . and support farmers--Michael Pollan, last night during his talk at the University of Dayton. I'm paraphrasing the end a bit.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record at times, or maybe a scratched disc, but if you're going to the trouble of cooking you may as well cook more than you'll eat during that sitting and plan to repurpose the leftovers into a new meal. It's a great way to plan to use the produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. When the Spring weather is so conducive to being outside--someone I know calls it "productivity poison"--meals that you can throw together from previously prepared ingredients are just the best.

This pizza is one example, and a terrific way to enjoy long-storing farm share ingredients. As a matter of fact, since my photos are date stamped, I know I made this pizza 3 weeks after I picked up the last farm share of the Fall season. Cabbages and radishes store for many weeks in the crisper, and can be used into the winter for fresh crunch in your meals.

When I say many weeks, I will be honest. I polished off THE LAST WATERMELON RADISH OF 2015 on April 17th, 2016. We're talking 4 months in my crisper. Four months!

Grilled Napa Cabbage and Chicken Skillet--Using the Grill as a Summer Kitchen

Too hot inside? Power out? Use your grill as a summer kitchen to make this Napa cabbage and chicken skillet supper.

I could start off by saying my kitchen is hot.

I could make innuendos about how hot my mattress feels. [In my opinion, Tempuerpedic sleeps hot.]

I could whine about my 80+ year old windows and their lack of insulation [what they lack in insulation they make up in charm?].

Kalua Pig, Pineapple, and Cabbage Salad

Slow-cooked Hawaiian style Kalua pig, layered over an Asian dressed cabbage salad and topped with fresh pineapple.

I got out of the car and immediately my ears were soothed by the rushing of water. I began to notice calls--most notably the red-winged blackbird that's been ubiquitous throughout the trip, but also plenty of little brown birds whose names I don't know despite iBirdPlus.

As I stood on the banks of Plum Creek I could envision what Laura Ingalls' childhood home was like. It was a very special moment for me.

A few minutes later a van pulled up with Idaho plates and I met the first group of fellow Little House tourists of our trip.

It is a small world.

Potluck Asian Chicken Cabbage Salad

Chicken, cabbage and salad greens tossed with an easy Asian dressing. Almonds, radishes, and ramen provide a crunchy contrast to this pot luck salad.

I had cabbage and radishes aplenty when informed of the impending opportunity to use up farm share veggies pot luck. Following my tip to stick with the familiar, from my post Five Tips to Feed Your Family From the Farm Share, I decided to make a chicken & cabbage salad with an Asian dressing. The guests did not include vegetarians or folks with nut allergies, so I felt comfortable making my usual recipe which comes from the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook (Amazon affiliate link).

I've tweaked this recipe in a few ways, shown below. First off, I added salad greens since I'm serving a crowd. Second, I added radishes since I had some, I thought they'd look pretty, and the extra crunch would go well. Third, I used seasoned rice vinegar (the kind I use for my sushi rice) and, since that is sweetened, I omit the sugar. I double the dressing since it's so good--and so easy to make. Method-wise, I change the recipe by tossing the chicken-cabbage mixture with the dressing and let it hang out for a few hours. Then I toss the whole lot together with a bit more dressing and it's ready to serve.

If I were planning to take this to work for a lunchtime pot luck, I'd cook the chicken, toast the ramen & almonds, make the dressing and chop all the vegetables the night before. In the morning I'd combine the chicken, cabbage & some of the dressing in one container, the salad greens, radishes, and green onions in another, and the ramen and almonds in a third container. At serving time I'd [carefully] toss everything together with more dressing in a large bowl or serving tray, top with ramen and almonds, and serve with extra dressing on the side.

For more recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For more recipes using salad greens, please see my Salad Greens Recipes Collection. For more ideas using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. These collections are all part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Dubliner Pizza

A St. Patrick's day pizza: corned beef & cabbage smothered with creamy Irish cheese.

I will probably be all over the place in these notes, so I apologize in advance. Squirrel! At least I'll try to break them up with official-looking subheadings.

The pizza

Since we eat pizza every Friday--and some Sunday afternoons while I'm working on shooting recipes for my first-in-a-series pizza ebook--food holidays are a great way to explore new flavor combinations. We've enjoyed 'Tremendously Green' cabbage and potato pizza and Irish cheddar, chicken, leek and potato pizza already, so I thought a corned beef & cabbage pizza was the next logical step. I like how this Irish cheese melts, so that addition was a no-brainer.

The behind-the-scenes photos

After my spouse returned from Afghanistan he bought a camera. While he was deciding if it fit his hand, I'd attempt to use it for photos. Once he determined that it wasn't right for him, he'd return it and buy a different one. He repeated these actions over the course of the winter, eventually settling on one. [The camera that I am still, a year later, attempting to use for photos!] The common thread--through the camera shopping and the marriage--is that I adapt to whatever works best for him. Adaptability is an excellent trait in a military spouse.

On the day I made this pizza we happened to have 2 cameras in the house--and a hungry assistant eager to get the photos taken so she could dig in. My spouse was using the new camera to take photos of me doing my thing with the previous new camera. The distraction is probably why I left an unfolded napkin in the corner of the photo, but at least it provides a place to overlay the recipe title.

Don't ask me which cameras he went though before ending up with his final choice. It doesn't matter because it's not the camera that takes a great photo, it's the person pushing the button. Whatever fits your hand and is easy for you to understand and use is the right camera for you. The brand name, the numbers on the lens--they are secondary to how it feels to you. Just make sure that something in the photo is in focus! There's no reason to have digital photos that are blurry. It's pizza, not a gazelle bounding away causing you to snap quick before the moment is gone.

There is nothing to disclose

I realized that there are an awful lot of brand names visible in these photos. Thanks to my spouse's hard-earned money I was able to buy everything at a variety of stores, and I'm choosing to share what I bought because the items worked really well in this recipe. There are plenty of times that I'm just not that into making pizza dough in advance, nor do I have any pizza crust yeast (Amazon affiliate link) to make a fast dough. I've tried a bunch of prebaked crusts and know what we like best. Use whatever products work best for you.

For other St Patrick's Day-inspired or 'any random day' pizzas, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. For other recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For other recipes using leeks, please see my Leek Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Breakfast Salad

Roasted potatoes, sautéed cabbage and shallots, and puffy scrambled eggs combined for a tasty morning--or evening--meal in one. A tasty way to start off your day--with vegetables.

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I'll be among the first to admit that my family is weird about breakfasts.  The kids don't like cereal (except for when they love cereal, geez, Mom, why didn't you buy more?), my spouse would happily eat oatmeal every single day, and I'm not hungry for hours after I wake up.  I'm very glad my kids are happy to eat leftovers and my spouse is self sufficient.  We do like muffins, eggs, and waffles a lot around here, though, and like to have big family breakfasts on the weekends. You'll find many breakfast or muffin options in my recipe index by category to your right --->

This is not a fast meal, and would be terrific for a weekend breakfast, or lunch or even Breakfast for Dinner if you like. For us it's another way to eat more veggies, and an unusual name that just stuck with me.  I mean, the idea of cabbage and potatoes together is a classic one.  And in our house, cabbage and potatoes for breakfast is not too unusual when we're getting cabbage in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share.

But to throw it all in a bowl and call it a salad is different for me. I got the idea on a walk [I walked a half marathon last year and recently signed up to do it again--hopefully with my spouse this time] while mulling over what to do with a cabbage.  I'd been seeing salad recipe round ups, and it just hit me that fixing our cabbage-for-breakfast, with a few modifications, would equal a Breakfast Salad.

Orange Teriyaki Slaw Stir Fry with Orange Sriracha Turkey Meatballs

A colorful, flavorful, stir fry of red cabbage, carrot, celery and onion in a fresh orange and teriyaki sauce.  Served with orange-ginger-sriracha turkey meatballs and rice.

This is another Fast from the Farm Share meal, combining Band Fruit Fundraiser oranges and cool weather vegetables in an Asian-inspired stir fry.  Because I had it, I baked ground turkey meatballs flavored with orange, ginger, and sriracha separately and added them at the end, but this orange-sauced stir fry would be terrific as a side with a different protein source.

Working on the savory orange recipes section of my Fall and Winter Fruit Recipe Round Up gave me a hankering for Asian-influenced orange recipes.  Since I like to use what I've got, I opened the fridge and chose a red cabbage, a fat carrot, and the last of the celery for this stir fry.  It's pretty much slaw ingredients--seasoned differently and stir fried. I used ground turkey for the same reason--and because the idea of having my daughter mix, shape, and bake the meatballs appealed to me after a day of hauling fruit in and out of vehicles.

I don't have a juicer--but I have a blender, so I tossed the peeled orange and all of the sauce ingredients into the blender and made quick work of the sauce.  Getting the rice going first, and baking the meatballs while working on the stir fry, means that this meal comes together very quickly.

If you want a bright and colorful vegetable side, or a flavorful omnivore meal, try this dish.  It brightens a dreary day.

Fish Taco Enchiladas

My dining room table is a battlefield.

I don't mean the battle over homework, though that also occurs at the dining room table, the breakfast nook table, and the Lego table.  I also don't mean the battle for Europe, or orange train cars, or vending cart cards, or goats for women.

Though as an aside, if you want to add more board games to your Game Nights I highly recommend the Board Game Family's recommendations. My spouse, with that site's advice, kickstarted our twice weekly FGNs after years of trying and failing to get a FGN routine going. And these games we play?  Great for adults without kids, too--they are just plain fun, unless you're malicious like my daughter playing Spot It--she always wins.

No, in fact I mean the How To Fold A Burrito Properly battle.  There are 4 of us eating, and we each fold our burritos in a different way.  And of course each one of us thinks we're right.  (My spouse is.) You'll notice in my Mu Shu (ish) Chicken Burrito post that I completely sidestepped the folding debate.  I'm sidestepping it again here, this time by making enchiladas! (I'm sure this says something about my personality or birth order or whatnot, but perhaps it's just that in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter to me how you fold your burrito.  Your sushi rolling is a different story.) I'm sharing this now because it is a tasty recipe and helped me to add variety in the proteins that we eat.

It just makes sense that eating a variety of foods in our diet is best, you know?  My family is fortunate that eating seasonally from our CSA farm share means that the produce in our diet (and that of the composting guinea pigs) is naturally varied.

I mean, I'm not going to the grocery store on Saturday and buying a head of lettuce, a package of tomatoes, a bag of carrots, and a bunch of bananas each and every week all year 'round.  Instead I'm yearning for tomatoes amidst the greens in May and overrun with squash and eggplant in August.  Such is the life of a CSA subscriber!  And that's the way I like it--eating from my CSA farm share appeals to me in ways I never considered when we started 8 years ago. I thought it would be similar when we got part of a cow for our freezer.  And it was, in part--we tried beef tongue tacos and ox tail stew for the first time.

What I didn't realize was that we'd end up eating more beef than we usually do, just because we have it in the house.  I have to work at eating protein sources other than beef--which is why I was tickled to see frozen Swai (aka Pangasius or Basa) fillets for $1.99/pound at the store.  Swai is a white fleshed fish in the "Good Alternative" category on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch website.  Protein that is a Good Alternative, that is a great price, is good for me.

But what to do with the Swai fillets?

I had some leftover shredded cabbage/coleslaw mix, cilantro, Greek yogurt, some of my home-canned salsa verde made with farm share tomatillos and roasted Hatch chiles from the grocery store down the street, and enchilada-size tortillas, so you can easily see why I went in the direction I did here.  While it is technically an enchilada, it's not covered with a ton of cheese and a rich sauce.  The cabbage still had a bit of crunch to it, the fish was firm, the whole dish just worked.  If you have Swai or any firm white-fleshed fish (tilapia, cod, perch and whitefish are all on the approved list of the website) try this twist on the traditional fish taco, avoid the burrito-folding battles, and add variety to your plate.