Tag Archives: Instant Pot

Hot green nourishing soup

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I don’t know about you, but after the excesses of holiday eating, I’m so ready for something simple and nourishing.

I was inspired by a recent segment on The Splendid Table podcast about basic green soup.

I also am a big fan of The Soup Peddler‘s (colorful Austin vendor of soups, juices, smoothies, and more) green detox broth.

Here’s my mashup, made in an Instant Pot using an immersion blender. I now have some good simple eating for the week and some to put in the freezer.

You can easily make this vegan or Paleo using your own adaptations. Recipes are for inspiration!

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons of ghee, bacon grease, coconut oil, or olive oil
  • 2 large yellow onions, peeled and sliced
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • black pepper to taste (optional)
  • 3 cups water, vegetable broth, or chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup Arborio rice (improves texture after blending)
  • 16 cups of leafy greens, herbs, broccoli, and zucchini (whatever is green and in season), coarsely chopped
  • 4 cups water, vegetable broth, or chicken broth
  • a pinch of cayenne
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • any other seasonings desired
  • olive oil to garnish

Steps:

  1. Set Instant Pot to saute and add fat, onions, salt, and pepper.
  2. Stir occasionally while cooking for 5 minutes, lid off.
  3. Stir, put the lid on, seal, and pressure cook for 20 minutes. Release pressure and remove lid. Onions should have a nice caramel color.
  4. Stir in 3 cups water or broth and 1/4 cup Arborio rice. Put the lid on, seal, and pressure cook for 1 minute. Release pressure manually and remove lid.
  5. Stir in the green veggies and add 4 more cups water or broth to Instant Pot. Pressure cook for 4 minutes. Release pressure and remove lid.
  6. Use an immersion blender in the pot, blending until contents are liquified.
  7. Add cayenne and lemon juice to taste. Adjust seasonings as desired. Garnish with olive oil.

Fermenting more stuff: I made natto at home!

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UPDATE: The post below was written in October 2016. Much has changed since then! I have been making natto in my Instant Pot! I once again got frozen natto as a starter at Asahi Imports — very inexpensive, 3 servings, and you only need about a teaspoon to start a batch. I followed instructions on a YouTube video on Instant Pot natto, and it turned out great — slimy, stringy, sticky, and tasty (well, it may be an acquired taste for some people).

Still need to try the natto breakfast taco. I envision kim chi in place of salsa, some avocado, and sprouts.

You need a glass bowl that fits inside your Instant Pot. I cooked way too many soybeans to fit in that size bowl, so I froze the excess and have since thawed some, added inoculant, and made another batch of natto. 

I’ve been eating a small serving most days with tamari and green onions, or with kim chi (which I’m fixin’ to make a big batch of). Fermentation freak that I am, I also made kvass — two batches, with yellow beets and red beets, and fizzy kombucha flavored with pomegranate juice. Along with sprouting seeds for salad garnish and sprouting a purple sweet potato to plant in my garden, my kitchen is a lively place! 

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A day after attending the Austin Fermentation Festival, where I sampled various kombuchas, krauts, a beet kvass, pickled veggies, mead, cider, raw milk cheese, and more, and thoroughly provided my gut with a wide array of probiotics, I am eating homemade natto for breakfast.

No one was selling or giving away samples of natto at the festival, which is a shame. Maybe that’s because, as one natto fan describes it, it’s like a vegan stinky cheese. I’ve heard some Japanese restaurants in the U.S. even seat natto eaters in a separate section! But I believe this crowd would have loved the opportunity to sample it and make up their own minds about it.

I got interested in making natto, a Japanese dish made of fermented soybeans, after learning it’s the highest known food source of Vitamin K2.You can also get K2 from Gouda and Brie cheeses, liver, egg yolks, butter/milk/meat from livestock eating green grass grown on good soil, fish eggs, and other sources.

Natto is apparently the only plant source. You can Google ”health benefits natto“ for more recent information than the links below.

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