Instant pot Baked Potato Soup

You know those soup recipes where you look at a dozen and none of them are quite right, but you can always synthesize? Yeah, that's what happened here. I wanted baked potato soup, dang it. From stuff I had in the house already, for goodness sake.

Then I had to make it again. And a couple more times.

(Husband *really* liked it. Since he is not a soup person, I take it as a high compliment.)

My best friend, who doesn't see what all the fuss is about with bacon, admits that this is an acceptable use of a pound. Use a good set of kitchen shears to take it into 1" or smaller pieces.

This recipe is somewhere on the opposite side of healthy from a salad. I use Bob's Red Mill GF AP for the flour, but any GF starchy flour will do here. White rice, cornstarch, potato, etc. I make this in the instant pot, but there's no requirement for that besides time. This is a recipe that takes additions well- broccoli, chives, anything else you think goes on a loaded potato.

Baked Potato Soup

1 lb bacon, in pieces

2 tbsp flour 

1/2 onion, diced*

4 large potatoes, cubed

4 c stock (chicken or veg)

4 c milk

1.5 c sharp cheddar shreads

1 c sour cream or plain yogurt

Fry up the bacon and optional onion 7-10 min, or until cooked. Add the flour to the pot and stir for about a min. Add the stock and potatoes. If you are using the instant pot, set it for 4 min. If you are using the stovetop, bring to a simmer for 30 min. 

Remove from heat. Add all the dairy and stir until combined. The sour cream should be dissolved, but bits of cheddar are good. Serves 6-8. 

Gnocchi with bacon, spinach, and pecans

A long time ago (2014), Teresa Nielsen Hayden posted her recipe for pasta with fresh peppers and arugula. I went to my now-husband and said "does this sound good for dinner?"

It did, but the only things we actually had at the time were the peppers and the cheese. But bacon is *like* pancetta, spinach is *almost* arugula, and one can always substitute pecans for walnuts. As it happens, she'd recommended a ricotta gnocchi recipe a couple of weeks prior and we had a spare batch in the freezer.

Moving to New England, fresh peppers have become quite dear, so they dropped from the recipe a few years ago.  This is what has evolved from that original. You can still make it with pasta, peppers, arugula, and walnuts! It's quite good! Or even store bought gnocchi, but they're not quite the same as homemade. Just save the pasta water for the sauce.

We always make a double batch of the gnocchi, then I can freeze the other half to use later.

Gnocchi:

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for baking sheet and work bench

1 ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely shredded, plus more for serving (about 1/3 cup)
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 cup (250 grams) whole milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg

Sauce:
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
1/2 c pecans
1 batch gnocchi
3 c parmesan, shredded (the good stuff)
1/2 c half and half
1/2c gnocchi water
4-6 oz (1 bag) of fresh spinach

Gnocchi: Put a quart of water on to boil. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Flour a flat surface and roll a snake about the diameter as your forefinger. Cut into 1 inch lengths and place on lightly floured baking sheet. Drop carefully into the boiling water in groups of 10. When they float to the surface, they're cooked through- pull them out and place in a collander to drain. Save at least a cup of the water for the sauce- the starchy water will thicken things quite nicely.

Sauce:
Over medium high heat, start cooking the bacon pieces. Once they're mostly cooked (about 5 min), toss in the pecans for another couple of minutes, or until toasted. Add in the gnocchi, cream, and pasta water and let it come to a summer.

Slowly incorporate the cheese a small handful at a time until you have what can only be described as a gooey mess. Add in the spinach, turn off the heat, and throw on the lid for 3 minutes. There should be a *lot* of spinach.

After the 3 minutes, fold it in to the rest of the gnocchi. It will have wilted slightly, but it's very definitely not cooked. Serve immediately. Makes about 4 servings.

Kofta Curry

Kofta Curry (cheater version)

It's a cold and rainy day here. There was snow this weekend. Snow! In May! I need something warm and hearty and spicy. Also, something that involves enough leftovers. I grabbed this base recipe a long time ago off pinterest, from the now defunct Zest and Zeal blog. We've made it for years, but recently that has involved using the Wayback Machine to grab it. So I might as well post it, but in the edited version that we've come to prefer here. We tend to take out half of the meatballs and sauce before adding the pickled lime, because my husband thinks it's the best and I am not a fan at all. We put it over rice.

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients for meatballs -

• 1 lb ground beef 
• 1/2 diced yellow onion
• 2/3 cup almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• dash of cinnamon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil for cooking the meatballs in

Ingredients for sauce

• 1/2 diced yellow onion
• 1 can of full-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup organic chicken stock
• 4 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 2 tablespoons pickled limes, chopped (optional)
• Red pepper flakes sprinkled just before serving

1. Combine all ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl.
2. Shape meatballs to desired size (golf ball, for us)
3. In a large skillet, melt coconut oil and add meatballs and half the diced onions and let them brown for a couple of minutes. 
4. Let the meatballs cook an additional 3-4 minutes.  Flip and cook another 3-4 minutes.
5. Mix the remaining ingredients for the sauce and cover meatballs with the sauce.
6. Cover the skillet and simmer until cooked through.
7. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes.

Quick Flatbread

Ok, so this started out as a specific quest. My bishop, being a baker (and formerly Baptist, so originally from the Stale Chicklet School) asked the parishes in the diocese to look at doing real bread for communion. Preferably baked in the parish, but grocery store pita was acceptable. 

Not acceptable in my parish, dang it. At this point, not only was I GF, but we had someone who was Celiac in the congregation and two children with egg allergies, and one should not have to fear cross contamination and hospitalization from Eucharist. It abrogates the point of being open and welcoming, if the choice presented is regularly send people to the hospital or deny them the grace of communion.* 

So I started with one of my gf baking cookbooks with a recipe for flatbread, using brown rice flour. It also works just fine with sorghum or buckwheat, but I decided to use a very common flour from the middle east - chickpea. If you can't do legumes, sub out another high protein flour. This is the vegan version, because see above - egg allergy. Replace the 4T water + psyllium husk with 2 eggs if you don't want to go into exotics. Flax eggs also work. 

This is version 3.5, having gone through a number of different options on the way, trying to find a gf bread that was not gummy, did not fall apart when it came in contact with wine, and could be made in batches ahead and frozen, and thawed in the microwave prior to the service.

The nice thing about this is that it makes a pretty good flatbread for dips, which, if you've been GF for long, is Really Hard. And yes, I have been known to do hummus with the chickpea bread. (also, the single round makes a nice flatbread base for pizza-like objects.) 

4 T olive oil

2 c chickpea flour

2 t sugar

1t salt

1 c + 4T water

2 T psyllium husk

1/2 t baking soda

5 t xanthan gum

2 t distilled vinegar

x

Preheat oven to 400. Mix flour & oil until well combined. Mix 2 T water & psyllium husk, then add into flour mix. Add & mix remaining ingredients in the order given, being sure to sprinkle the xanthan gum evenly to avoid lumps. Mix until well blended. Divide dough in half. On a greased baking sheet (or, by preference, greased aluminum foil lining the baking sheet) spread into two even rounds about 1/2" thick (about 8" across). (Optional: Drizzle with oil & sprinkle with salt.) Bake for 20-25 min

*I have opinions about the choices around how we celebrate communion in the Episcopal church, but not on the recipe blog.