any tips for lowcarbing with an instant pot?
 

I just got an instant pot and have been messing around with it, trying a few new recipes. There seems to be a bit of a learning curve with it, but everything that has worked well has been really delicious. Anyone else instant potting? Any fave recipes?

There are some recipes on this link that i want to try:
http://thepaleomama.com/2015/12/low...nt-pot-recipes/

And this one. Not all of them are lowcarb, so i'll have to modify the ones that aren't. I'm also gluten and dairy free, so i'm always changing recipes to suit my needs. http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2015/06...recipe-roundup/

I'd try to answer, but I really am not certain what an instant pot is.

Looks like it's a pressure cooker.

Growing up my mother used it quite a bit.

I believe I recall beans being cooked up fairly quickly.

A friend tried to interest me in one, but, quite honestly, it seemed the best uses are for beans and grains, and I don't eat them anymore. Also it can be used as a slow cooker (I already have 2 of those) and a rice cooker (have one, but don't use it anymore). I am also retired, have a reasonable amount of time on my hands, and don't see any need to speed up the cooking process with pressure cooking. I am a big believer in Slow Food, as opposed to Fast Food. So I won't be getting one, but I can see that for a working person, with children demanding food NOW! it might be quite useful.

What a pressure cooker (thanks for the info!) is great for is tough cuts of meat, because the pressure tenderizes them without the day long cooking of a slow cooker.

When I was a little girl, "roast beef" meant a chuck roast that was cooked in the pressure cooker with potatoes, carrots and onions. Obviously, not appropriate for low carb, but I still make it with a few carrots and onions, and cook a potato in the microwave for Husband. It's so very, very good, and with an automatic pressure cooker, you can brown the meat in the pressure cooker, add the veggies, water and seasoning, and then let it go on its own till the pressure drops--only a couple of hours.

If you're impatient, release the pressure as soon as it's done, and the total time drops to about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Older chicken--which we don't really see in the grocery stores, but can be found from local farmers, if you have them--does great in a pressure cooker, too.

The general rule, because they vary in size and shape, is to add about a cup (.25 liters) of water to the pot, and not to fill more than 2/3 of the way to the rim.

Beyond that, just use your imagination. The tougher the meat, the longer the cooking, to break down the fibers that toughen it.

it makes amazing bone broth. i've been making 48-72 hour bone broth for many years. this thing does it in 2 1/2-3 hours to perfection.

i'm big into the slow food thing too, to the point where we bought a piece of land so that i can raise my own meat and know exactly how it was raised and what it was eating, and how it was slaughtered, etc! the instant pot is apparently a healthier way to cook food: less acrylamides, lectins, phytic acid, more nutrients retained, etc.

I have one also! The past week I've been using the slow cooker option as a humidifier. LOL! So versatile!

I did a chuck roast in it last week. Just put mirpoix on the bottom, schlepped in my roast, seasoned, some water, voila. Done in 35 minutes.

It is good for steaming veggies too. I drop in a veggie steamer and a bit of water. I bought a glass lid for it. Put that one and then steam the veggies.

I haven't had good luck using the pressure cooking part for most veggies. It usually overcooks them.

Sometimes I just use it as a big pot and not a pressure cooker. In fact, probably more often than not.

Thanks for all of your tips. We don't have any old hens yet, but when we do, they're destined for the pressure cooker for sure. It seems like people are cooking their lowcarb veggies under pressure too. spaghetti squash looks promising. i did cabbage the other day but it turned to mush. i'm guessing i went too long with it. i keep seeing recipes for cauli-rice etc in the instant pot. i guess it's just a matter of figuring out the timing.

my husband wants to get the glass lids and some extra gadgets for it. it's so much fun to have a new toy in the kitchen. i make everything from scratch, and cooking gets tedious sometimes.

i had to look up mirpoix! what do you make yours with? google says it's traditionally a mix of carrots, celery and onion

it seems like it would be handy in the summer too, since it doesnt heat up the kitchen. and we've noticed that there's no smell when the bone broth is going. hubby just told me yesterday that he can't stand the smell of the 48hr bone broth when it's going. :/ after years of tolerating it!

That's what I use for my mirpoix. I actually got pre-chopped mirpoix from Trader Joe's. I cook my roast with it then I use an immersion blender and make a gravy from it. Turn the pot back onto saute and boil it down. You can splash some wine or sherry into it if you want. Makes a nice gravy.

Once you open the vent though it lets all that smell out into the house! :lol: I sometimes cook things in the garage for that reason. Just put it on my workbench and plug it in.

Wow! I just accidentally ran into this thread and have an instapot too. I've been trying to do stuff in it for about a year with some good results and a few kitchen nightmares. I'm going to catch up on this thread, steal ideas from you all and share some of my experience.

I thought I was alone. Go Instapot!

PS, I have a batch of collard greens and ham hocks in the pot sitting in the fridge. I need to portion that out this evening and get a chuck roast going that I bought a few days ago for lunches.

for some reason there don't seem to be very many lowcarb instant potters online. maybe it just hasn't caught on yet? lots of paleos and autoimmuners though.

how do you do up your collard greens in the instant pot?

There's a recipe for collard greens in the cookbook "Pressure Cooker Perfection" from America's Test Kitchen.

I like it because it makes the meat so tender and flavorful. Otherwise I can only get the food that way if I do hours-long slow cooking. I like that too, but sometimes i want it during the week too. What I plan on Sunday, I change my mind by Wednesday if you know what I mean.

there's a run on pressure cooking books at my library! waiting lists for everything. i put a hold on 'pressure cooking perfection' but it looks like a month or so before i'll see it. :)

omg, I was typing up a long method for doing collards and the browser diedand I lost all my work. Ha! I'll try again tomorrow.

Here's a basic Collard green cook I did a week ago. You're milage may vary.

Ingredients:
A couple bunches of Collard greens
Onion
Garlic
Bacon grease
Somked Ham Hoc
Vinegar
Salt
Dried Thai chili flake
Hot Sauce (I like La Valentina x hot)

So There a couple of way to go, with stems or without. This time I got so many greens that if i used the stems they would not fit in the 5L pot. I like the stems/ribs a lot, they are kind of sweet.

The way I prepare the green is to fill up a huge sink and soak and wash them under the water. The store bought greens around here don't have much dirt so it might be a bit over kill. Next stem the leaves. Keep or discard stems. Layer leaves on cutting board stacked maybe 5-8, roll them up and cut into circular strips. One inch or less works for me. Set the cut greens in a large container. Chop up the stems if you are going to use those.

Start the Instapot on saute mode add some type of fat. I like to use bacon drippings. Add stems and get those going till you think you should add in the onion and garlic. I also toss in a lot of Thai chili. Saute away. the pot is pretty hot so I use low or medium setting.

I add in the hocks or other kind of pork thing into the mix and roll it around for a bit. Next, pack the greens into the pot. Leave a little room at the top. The greens will not expand but this is recommended.

You can add hand fulls of greens and sprinkle salt as you go. I kind of just wait till they are all in and then blast salt on them. I then add hot sauce over them.

Then comes the tricky part of adding liquid. In the begining I always seemed to add to much. The greens have a bunch in them. So what I now do is mix up some vinegar and water. I normally use less than a cup and I like a LOT of vinegar, like half and half in an 8oz cup. You can always add more vinegar after and that probably a smarter thing to do.

So you add the liquid over the top and try to drive down the salt and hot sauce thru the greens. That's it!

I stop the saute mode and switch to "manual" and high pressure for 30 mins or so. It make pretty mushy greens. You should experiment with shorter times if you like really firm greens. So go for maybe 15-20 mins and quick release the pressure and take a look and feel of what's happening. Close it back up if you think you need more cooking.

I never had these before about 2 years ago. I bought bunches many times but chickened out cooking them and the greens wilted and were tossed. Now they are one of my favorite sides and can be even be a main meal with all the pork (or other meat) and fat that you can add.

Here's some I did a few days ago, not a great picture but they are delicious to me :yum: Good luck and ask question and I will try to answer. I also made some coconut beef that was good and I wrote up some stuff and will post after this.

Kind of a Thai inspired chuck roast in the Instapot. You can do your carb counting as you add ingredients and add more or less of things as you like. Below are some ideas and pictures. Let me know if you have any questions. I really like the Instapot. There are always things in my refrigerator that are used for warm up meals.

====
a few pounds of chuck roast
onion
peppers (bell or jalapeno, habanero, whatever you like)
ginger
garlic
Dry Chili
coconut milk
curry paste
fish sauce
vinegar


cut up beef into chunks and sear in cooker or separate pan or both; remove. save any drippings

saute onion, peppers, ginger and garlic in cooker. Drop meat in when you like

take a table spoon or so of some thai curry paste (optional) and mix into cup of coconut milk (Aroy-D) 2 ingredients - coconunt and water





Add mixture to pot along with some fish sauce and vinegar and dry chili to pot and mix with meat a bit



turn off saute mode and switch to "manual" on the instapot and set for 30 mins. Kick back and do dishes or somthing useful ;-)

This time I did a quick release. I removed the beef from the pot and let cool on plate.

Turned on the Saute function to low or medium and reduced the remaining liquid.

After the beef cooled I coarsely pulled it...



Turned off the pot after the liquid had reduced (you be the judge) at this point i decided to put the shredded beef back in but if you were a sane person you might want to let the mixture cool and collect the fat. In any case, it tuned out good, reall good! This is a way to make stuff up on the fly. I've made plenty of mistakes but they've all been edible and I've learned from each one.



Happy Instapot-ing!

wow, thanks for writing out your recipes, they look awesome! will give them a try for sure. we like the spicey, savoury foods, so i'm sure your recipes will be a hit around here.

i'm also a big fan of the aroy-d coconut milk, it's the only kind we buy. Last winter there was some kind of shortage, and all the local stores were out of it for months. :( this year i stockpiled some just in case.

Walnut, I'm glad you like. I've been photo journaling stuff that I've made since starting keto 3 months ago. I took these pictures to remind myself of things. I don't really write any recipes down so that kind of sucks if I get lucky and make something good. Luck of the draw. You might find these helpful, most of the stuff that DOESNT look like it was stir fried might have been made in the instapot. Lot's of the meat and all of the collards for sure. here you go and I'll answer any questions if you have them:

http://downhaul.com/lowcarb/keto1-28/

http://downhaul.com/lowcarb/keto29-56/

http://downhaul.com/lowcarb/keto57-84/

Instapot Bone Broth
 

I filled up a bag of bones and started this tonight. I filled to just a bit below the full line and added some garlic, ginger, thai chili, salt, and more chili. Set on Manual for 120 mins and we'll see what we get. Bones were a mixture of chicken, pork, beef and shrimp shells. Here's picture before the lid went on:

http://downhaul.com/lowcarb/keto85-112/Pages/42.html

Happy Instapot-ing!

I think a lot of paleo/low carb blogs have instant pot recipes. Here's one! http://predominantlypaleo.com/insta...garlic-chicken/

BTW: Using mine a LOT right now!

I like this web site: http://www.hippressurecooking.com/

I've used mine for both pressure cooking and the slow cooker option though I'm not a big fan of slow cooker recipes in general. Bone broth is fantastically quick though.

What I have enjoyed, is using it to make yogurt from cream (18%) and crème fraiche (using whipping cream). Difficult to estimate carbs though...

I would have though it would be too hot for making fermented dairy products. How do you accomplish that?

I would use my sous vide for that though.

There is a "yogurt" setting on the machine. I've never used it and would be interested to find out more. Here's another Instapot creation from a few days ago. I've never had goat before but it was crazy good. A one pot meal. I'm planing on putting together the process photos if anyone is interested. Here's the final result: Curry Goat!

For yogurt - I followed the instructions here: http://www.tidbits-cami.com/2015/09...ade-yogurt.html

A couple of tips:
- you don't need to make gallons - I did my last batch with a 1 litre (4 cups) of cream right in the pot (some recipes have you do it in jars on a steamer rack - too much work for me!)
- you don't need milk powder to thicken it.
- you will need a good thermometer to catch the cream at 115 degrees when you cool it down before adding the yogurt. I have a thermopen that I adore but it is an investment.
- the longer you run the yogurt cycle (i.e. after the boil and cool down), the thicker and tangier your yogurt will be. You can run the "yogt" cycle again. The benefit is that those happy little bacteria will munch more of the sugars in the milk/cream. I'm not a chemist, but I would think that means fewer carbs!

So I had quite a bit of luck with 18% cream with just one cycle though next time I'll do 2. For whipping cream, I ran two cycles but next time I think I'll do three (24 hours).

Good luck!

Edited to fix stuff!

Wow, I'd love to eliminate an appliance and use this instead of having a separate slow cooker and yogurt maker. :thup: If my current crock pot dies (probably never :D ) I might replace it with one of these and ditch the yogurt maker.

I haven't even made yogurt in ages. If anyone is curious, there are several old yogurt making threads. :thup: Here's one with my recipe. I can't find the other thread I'm thinking of, but NancyLC shared a cool food chemistry link in which someone from one of the big dairies explained why (if you look at my recipe) they hold it at about 180F for 20 minutes or so for a thicker yogurt. The proteins start to change shape and gel together or something like that. It worked well for me - worth the 20 minutes of stirring/removing the pan from the stove briefly/babysitting. :)

I thought it was 185', Kristine. Hmmm... now I need to find it again!

Yes, it is 185!

http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/ma...urt/heat-to-185

http://www.usu.edu/westcent/microst...food/Yogurt.htm

Does my IP have a yogurt button? Huh! I'll have to go look at it again.

Just had a bit of a bone broth made with the InstaPot again. This one was a bit simpler than last time. A little less than a gallon of assorted bones and shrimp shells. Put into pot, added some salt, pepper flake, couple cloves of garlic and vinegar. Filled with tap water to just a little bit under the "Max Fill" line in the pot and set to Manual and HIGH for 120 mins, natural release for 30 mins then I could wait no longer, It's gonna be good, it's got that "jiggley" consistance even super hot. BONE JELLO!

Bones:


Happy Instapot-ing