Rubbishy Cookery

  I was making this recipe for baked beans long before I had an Instant Pot, and so you can too. But as you’ll see, the IP makes everything a whole lot simpler. Ingredients (the night before): What we have in the photo above is two cups of dried Jacob’s cattle beans in a large bowl of water to soak overnight. You can use any beans you like here. To be more of a classic canned baked beans, use the smaller white “navy” beans. Full set of ingredients: Note: feel free to add bacon or ham or other pork product if you want the meaty version. Directions: The next morning, drain your overnight soaked beans and place in the IP with water covering, but not exceeding the halfway measure, to avoid overflow: Check the manual for pressure cooking time for the beans you’ve chosen and soaked. Since Jacob’s cattle beans aren’t listed, I’ll approximate the time based on similarly sized beans listed here: And choose 8 minutes: I let it have a slow release after the 8 minutes, and here they are, prett...

  This is a great way to use a $3 bag of beets from the farm market up the road, but be forewarned: beets are not just a vibrant colour! They turn everything they come in contact with a vibrant colour! That includes your hands, your clothes, your cutting board, your tablecloth, and even your insides. So DON’T PANIC when you go to the bathroom the next day! Ingredients: I forgot to photograph the raw beets pre-Instant Pot cooking, how rubbishy of me! Rubbishy bloggery! I also added on a bonus ingredient halfway through: Directions: First, cook the beets. As mentioned previously, I use an Instant Pot and have a chart for pressure cooking time by average beet circumference: I don’t remember where I found this chart, so I can’t give it credit, but it’s perfect every time. Thanks to whoever published this on the interwebs!  You can also boil or roast the beets, just get them cooked so that you can easily poke a knife into them: Peel and slice the beets, maybe wearing an apron so yo...

  This is the closest thing I make to a real salade niçoise, and although it’s much more effort than the other, faker versions (see recipes #15 and #20) (and still not authentic), it’s well worth it! Ingredients: Directions: I’m going to make my hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot because I have one and it makes perfect hard boiled eggs (as well as cool fun-house reflections on the mirrored interior), but you can certainly make them the old fashioned way on the stove top: Boil up some fresh baby new potatoes and green or yellow beans: The potatoes take longer than the beans, which are really just quick cooked to al dente or barely cooked, then plunged into cold water to stop them from overcooking, then drained well. The potatoes are cooked until a fork can easily pierce them, then drained well but kept warm. Chop all the raw vegetables and put into the salad bowl: Then add the canned tuna with oil, chopped hard boiled eggs, drained beans, drained (and still warm) diced potatoes, an...

  Today we’re going to make basic black beans, which are an incredibly versatile base for many Tex and/or Mex style dishes. Making a big batch of beans means lots of easy meals in the days ahead with the leftovers and the addition of some two dimensional corn-based products. More on this in future recipes! I’m sure I didn’t actually invent this recipe per se , but I can’t remember how or when I learned this particular combination of ingredients and method of preparation. It is probably a composite/bastardization of multiple other real recipes, pared down to the minimal amount of time, energy, and ingredients necessary to make it still taste good. And isn’t that what rubbishy cookery is all about? Ingredients: Don’t panic about the Instant Pot! I am only using it because I have one. I used to make this exact recipe on the stovetop for decades before I got an Instant Pot. Yes, decades. I’m that old. Directions: Chop up your onion (or in my case, half onion because it was quite large)...