Instant Pot Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

An Instant Pot version of the classic creamy chicken & wild rice soup. Laden with mushrooms, carrots & celery, this soup cooks from frozen chicken breasts in under an hour in an electric pressure cooker.

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Yes, it's been a while. I've been teaching a series of Instant Pot Basics cooking classes for the past two months. We make this recipe in Class 2:  Cooking from Frozen. My students have inspired me to create some new recipes for the Instant Pot that I'll be sharing here now that I'm in between classes for a bit, so stay tuned!


I love using my IP for soup. The ability to sauté the veggies, deglaze the pan, and then add the rest of the ingredients and walk away is heavenly! Because I'm sharing soups with my folks and my girlie as well, I've had days this winter when I've made 3 different soups in a single morning. My days are not All Soup All The Time, though. Mostly I've been spending my time shoveling since Minnesota decided to welcome me in a Big Way. We live on a corner, so after the first 5 or 6 snowfalls we really got the hang of shoveling this place. I even shoveled a racetrack in the backyard since there's so much snow. (You can see video of the dogs running their track on my FB and IG feeds.)

Weeknight Instant Pot Risotto with Peas, Lemon, and Parmesan

A bright side dish with peas and lemon, this creamy risotto cooks up quick and easy in the pressure cooker. The parmesan flavor goes well with pork, chicken, or seafood or as a springtime meatless main course.

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As the weather turns warmer I crave lighter foods. When evenings are still cool, however, having a nice warm side dish makes for a cozy meal. This Spring Risotto from Kristy Bernardo's cookbook Weeknight Cooking with your Instant Pot is perfect for this time of year.

My spouse bought me an Instant Pot last summer, and I think it's a terrific tool to help me get a home-cooked meal on the table. I almost said "nutritious home-cooked meal" but if you've been here before (thanks for coming back!) you'll know my usual fare is nutritious home-cooked meals. I feel the IP is more than a gadget--the ease of making clear, beautiful chicken stock ahem chicken bone broth, dry beans to a meal in an hour, and easy to peel hard boiled eggs are big selling points--but it will not replace my rice cooker or my slow cooker. I don't think I'll ever throw dry spaghetti, sauce, and water into the IP. It's too easy to do on the stove top. Frozen meat? Maybe. We'll see.

Instant Pot® Pickled Pork Sliders

Pickled pork sliders combine bacon, ground pork, and pickles for a savory sandwich. These are terrific with coleslaw or over rice. Use the Instant Pot® or make it on the stove top--with only 5 everyday ingredients, this recipe is easy to make and fun to eat.

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Disclosure--this post is sponsored by the Ohio Pork Council. The more I meet with Ohio hog farmers the more inspired I am to create recipes showcasing their hard work. Pork is a versatile protein and I always have some in my freezer. I'm glad to show you an easy way to enjoy ground pork!

I've been using my new Instant Pot to make new versions of old favorites. In this post I'm updating my Pickled Pork and White Bean Sliders recipe with a new-and-improved version, using bacon instead of beans, and cucumber pickles instead of yellow squash pickles. If you're looking for the old version, scroll down to the bottom and you'll find the stove top directions.

When I embraced making pickles--thanks to the clear directions and approachable small batch recipes in Marisa McClellan's book Food in Jars (Amazon affiliate link) and on her eponymous blog--I did so with gusto. I pickled cucumbers, beets, peppers, green beans, squash, and turnips nearly as fast as I could accumulate mass quantities of them from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I soon had jars of quick-pickled vegetables in my fridge, and water bath-processed jars of pickled vegetables in my pantry. I had a family who unanimously loved cucumber pickles--at least on sandwiches and burgers.
What I didn't have were kids who would embrace different types of pickled vegetables.

Pickled beets?  Um, they're beets, Mom. Pickled turnips?  No, thanks. Pickled peppers?  Too hot! Pickled squash? Just . . . . why? Dilly Beans? Ok, none of us really cared for them, though I tolerated them in a nicoise salad.

Multigrain Sourdough Bread (in a bread machine)

Multigrain sourdough bread--sounds hard, but use the bread machine to easily make this loaf!

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Today I am joining with my fellow food bloggers to encourage our readers to donate to The Lunchbox Fund, an organization that provides daily meals to South African children.

Why am I asking you to help feed kids in South Africa when there are hungry kids in our own communities?  It's simple.  I feel everyone who can help has a responsibility to help others.  In my community, I give my time and my food to my local Foodbank.  With 65% of all kids in South Africa living in poverty, nearly 20% of them orphans, it is clear to me that my help is needed outside my own community.  By participating in this campaign with The Giving Table, we are hoping to raise enough funds to provide a daily meal to 100 South African children for a year.

There's strength in numbers, people.

I just donated $10 to help feed kids in South Africa, it took me about 2 minutes, and you know where I coughed up the money from?  I spent the weekend at a sled hockey tournament in snowy Ft Wayne, Indiana.  Instead of picking up drinks and snacks on the road/at the venue, I packed from home.  That saved me easily $10, and other than a bit of planning ahead it was painless. And better for us.


I'll tell you more after the recipe, but first--a bit about this bread.  When Nicole asked me to share a lunch recipe I was stumped.  I mean, more often than not my daughter comes home from school and we eat leftovers for lunch. "Remove container from fridge.  Reheat in microwave." is a pretty short recipe, you know?  Then I started thinking about my son, and how I forced him to he's been making his own lunch this year, which is usually a sandwich.  The foundation of his sandwiches is usually this bread.

I started making bread 6 months ago after reading Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Amazon Affiliate link) while participating in the HOMEGROWN.org summer book club.  Learning about what all goes into a loaf in a Wonderbread factory left me unsettled.  [Not that I'd been buying Wonderbread, mind you.]  I had a packet of dried sourdough starter so I decided to go for it.

Over the months I've tweaked the recipe I started with, from Best Bread Machine Recipes (another Amazon Affiliate Link), adding flax meal and oats, adjusting the amount and kind of flours originally specified.  Because I started making this bread in August, when my kitchen is crazy hot (it's crazy cold in the winter) I chose to dust off my bread machine.

Rant: Some folks may say that this is a cop out, that I am not really baking bread.  You know what?  When I load dirty clothes, washing soda, vinegar, detergent and fabric softener into my washing machine, close the lid, and push the start button I say I'm doing laundry.  And I'm not even controlling the amount of water used to wash the clothes!  Use the tools available to you, if you like.  At the thrift shop where I work, I see bread machines each month--usually in the $10 to $20 range. /rant

Soy Sriracha Roasted Mushrooms

Soy sauce and sriracha marinated roasted mushrooms for a savory bite.  Easy to make and addictive.

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Welcome to 2014! Have you resolved to eat more veggies?

The common theme I'm seeing among a wide variety of eating styles, from vegan to Paleo, is this:  eat more vegetables.  The best way to eat more vegetables is to have them in your kitchen. A terrific way to get vegetables into your kitchen--while supporting your local community--is to find a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share near you.  On the left side bar you'll see a Local Harvest gadget.  If you're in the US, you can type in your zip code and see what's available in your area.  If you live in the Seattle area, you can buy direct from local farmers via Farmstr.  Check out Farmstr here.

I always want to eat more veggies, so I've got another awesome veggie appetizer for you.  This one came about as a happy accident.  Like Liz, I attempt to maintain a well-stocked Asian pantry.
Key word:  attempt.

I was at the grocery store, swinging by the fancy cheese section looking for magical markdown stickers when I tried a sample of teriyaki marinated mushrooms (my eyes are starting to read 'magical mushrooms' right now, and while these tasted magically delicious, they are not that kind of mushrooms).  Those teriyaki mushrooms tasted so delicious I resolved to make them at home right away.  My spouse and I are the ones who enjoy mushrooms in our house, so I figured I'd branch out from our Skillet Mushroom Dip for Two and have another easy, eat it hot or warm or room temperature make ahead mushroom recipe in my repertoire.

I consulted this week's library loan cookbook, All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art (Amazon affiliate link), and adapted Molly Steven's roasted mushroom recipe.  I intended to splash in some teriyaki sauce after the mushrooms were done, but as you can see from the title that didn't happen.

I forgot that I'd used up all the teriyaki sauce in this meal.  Oops!  Well-stocked Asian pantry fail.  Instead I grabbed the sriracha and the soy sauce and made a delightfully zingy marinade.

This is easy.  This is fast.  This is a make ahead.  This is an awesome veggie app!  To find more awesome veggie apps and snacks, check out my Pinterest board. For other recipe ideas using mushrooms, please see my Mushroom Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know How to Use This Blog? Click here.