Veggie soup with quinoa

Trying to duplicate my love with the soup at Season's Harvest Cafe in Cypress.

The only difference was the price.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup zucchini, sliced
1 cup broccoli
1/4 cup red bell pepper, cubed

Direction:

1. Cook your broth with my Chicken Broth recipe or open a can of beef broth. 
2. Boil the ingredients until zucchini and broccoli are tender.
3. Remove from heat and season with sea salt.
4. Ready to serve.

My version is good as their version.

Colorful Bean Soup

This is a time-saving recipe in total time spent, not fast cooking. For the proper flavor, Trinity is required. This recipe eliminated over-night soaking of dry beans and constantly watching over cooking of beans. 

Colorful combination in Midea Pressure Cooker.

Ingredients:
1 cup mixed beans from Whole Foods Bulk Bin #6721
1/2 cup pinto beans
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/3 stalk celery, finely chopped
1/4 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 medium ham hock
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
2 medium bay leaves, crushed
6 cups water

Directions:

1. Make the Trinity in a pan - sauté all vegetables in 1 tbsp of Olive Oil over medium heat until onion turns translucent. Not in the Midea pot, because it would make it bottom really sticky and hard to clean.
2. Rinse dried beans, no soaking required. 
3. Place Trinity in Midea Pressure Cooker with ham hock, rinsed beans, spices and 6 cups of water. Watch the level on the pot, make sure it is below Max line. 
4. Follow the instruction and set to cook 40 minutes on Bean/Chili setting.
5. When ready, remove contents from pot. 
6. Season with sea salt. I put 1 tsp because ham hock is already salted.

This is one delicious and healthy high-fiber soup, great for people with diabetes.

Pot of Greens

I love collard greens. But constantly checking on the pot over long period of 2 hour became annoying. My recent discovery with Midea Pressure Cooker saved me time and energy.

Easy greens as 1-2-3.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of collard greens, cleaned
1/2 can of chicken broth, low sodium
1 ham hock
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 poblano or green bell pepper,  chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 okra, chopped

Directions:

1. Break the collard leaves from the stems and tear leaves by hand, not knife.
2. Put all ingredients into the Midea pot and follow the safety instructions. 
3. Set to steam for 30 minutes. 
4. When ready, release the pressure and open the lid.
5. Season with salt and dashes of Tabasco  hot sauce.

Chinese Summer Tonic Soup

All dried ingredients lined up neatly

This is a lazy way to cook a pot of 桂圓紅棗枸杞白木耳甜湯 red dates longan goji snow fungus soup with Midea Pressure Cooker. Why summer? Because of its ingredients are suitable for hot summer days. But it can be consumed any time of the year. There are several locations sell these ingredients in Chinatown: Hong Kong Seafood City, Yin Wall City, Viet Hoa Market.

Ingredients:

1 cup lotus seeds 蓮子
1 cup split jujubes, dried 紅棗
2 tbs goji berries, dried 枸杞
3 tbs longan meat, dried 桂圓
1 head snow fungus 銀耳

2 oz rock sugar or brown sugar

Directions:

1. Soak white fungus in warm water until expanded. Trim off yellow part on the base. This may be bitter or sour.
2. Rinse all ingredients well. 
3. Place in the pot. 
4. Add water to level 6.
5. Set to SOUP in Midea Pressure Cooker for 30 minutes. 
6. When done, add desired sweetness to the soup. I prefer plain because longan is naturally sweet.
7. Remove from pot and store in a gallon container.
8. Try to consume the soup in a week at any temperature. 

Brown sugar will turn the soup dark.

The effects of rock sugar is purity.

References:

|  Recipe from Pixnet | Another Recipe & Nutrition in Chinese  | English Jujube Tea |

Nutritional Values:

蓮子 Lotus Seeds |
紅棗 Jujubes |
枸杞 Goji Berries |
桂圓 Longan |
銀耳 Snow Fungus 

Simple Chicken Broth

Chicken was on sale at 59¢ a pound. I bought several. After removing the meat from the bones, I decided to cook these bones for clear chicken broth.

1 set of chicken back and breast cage
2 stalks of celery
3 skinny carrots
half onion
4 cups water

Set to SLOW COOKER mode. It will automatically cook for 8 hours.

This is a base for a lot of soups. You can modify the vegetables as you see fit. Discard the vegetables and season the broth with salt and pepper if necessary.

Just Rice

Nothing fancy. Just trying on steamed rice with half white, half brown in this Midea Electric Pressure Cooker.

Follow the usual rice cooker instructions:
1 cup Jasmine brown rice
1 cup Jasmine rice
3 cups water

Set to BROWN RICE and wait til it's done.

Steamed rice close up.

Comparing to the conventional rice cooker, the texture was perfect on the day of cooking. However, the quality degrade faster to hard to chew on 6th day. I don't like to haul around a large pot just to cook rice. So, my conclusion is to continue using my mini rice cooker. 

BBQ Beef Ribs with Midea

Trying to cook my first beef ribs with Midea Pressure Cooker.

Ingredient lineup.

Ingredients:
3-4 lb. Beef Ribs
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup dry rub
1 tsp liquid smoke
1/2 cup BBQ sauce

Directions:

1. Rinse the ribs and pat dry.
2. Lay on a tray for dry rub. Pat down the seasoning well on all surfaces. 
3. Stack the rib pieces like a teepee. 
4. Pour broth mixed with liquid smoke in the inner pot. 
5. Lock the lid and set to STEAM for 30 min. 
6. Preheat oven to 450 when Midea says OH (done).
7. Arrange the ribs on a roasting tray and brush bbq sauce on the ribs. Bake for 10 min, then flip the side and brush on each piece. Bake for another 10 min.

Before & After of Steamed Beef Ribs. Meat felt off the bones easily.

Chicken Soup Made of Scraps

It's cold outside. My favorite comfort food is soup. Instead of spending money at the restaurants, I decided to make my own chicken soup. After learning from Ziad at Eatwell Bakery Cafe , I want to try his "nothing but chicken" recipe. Well, I had to clean up my refrigerator last night. I added some other stuff.

I striped this chicken to bones only. I used other parts for entree.

Ingredients:
1 Chicken back and bones from breast part. Don't remove skin. That's for flavoring.
2 Carrots, medium size
1 Celery, stalk
1 Cucumber (I hate to waste a freeze-burnt veggie.)
1/2 Onion
1 piece American Ginseng (optional)
1-3 tbsp Salt, after the soup is done

Procedure:

1. Put everything in the pot and fill with water to cover the ingredients.
2. Set Midea Electrical Pressure Cooker to SOUP setting for 33 minutes.
3. Follow instruction to start the process.
4. When done, release pressure and discard all vegetable solids. 
5. Remove soup and meat from the pot, season with 1 tbsp salt to taste.

Fresh chicken is on sale 58¢ per pound at H-E-B on Beechnut. Time to make some good soup at home and save my money for Houston Rodeo next month.

Beef Stew from Midea Cooker

I thought to give this piece of chuck roast a try after I found a recipe online. I modified to my Midea cooker's requirement. It's easy to follow and delicious.

One-pot cooking. Enjoy it with steamed rice.

Stuff you need:

2 - 3 lb boneless chuck roast. (the marble ones are tender)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup olive oil or cooking oil

1 cup onion, chopped 

1/2 cup celery, chopped 

1/2 cup carrots, diced

2 cups potatoes, cubed

2 tbsp garlic, sliced

5 cups water (just enough to cover the meat)

1 package Beef Stew Seasoning Mix

Do you have these ingredients in your refrigerator?

Direction:

1. Cut the meat into 1 inch cube. It's easier to cut when halfway defrosted.
2. Place flour and cubed meat in a zip lock back and vigorously shake the bag to coat all pieces.
3. Prepare a separate pan or pot to sear the meat 
4. Add oil to medium heated pan. Add meat pieces and turn frequently until all sides are seared.
5. Add onion, carrots, celery and garlic into the pan. Toss until onion is translucent. 
6. Transfer everything from pan to the pressure cooker's inner pot.
7. Fill with potatoes and water. Don't overfill and watch the maximum line. 
8. Cover and set to SOUP for 25 minutes.
9. Follow the standard procedure during and after cooking. 
10. Let stand for a least 30 minutes while release pressure.
11. Uncover and stir thoroughly. Season to taste with hot sauce or pepper.

Note:

Some recipes want you to sautée in the inner pot. But that would ruin the pot's luster. I prefer to use a separate pan, because I used so much oil and trying to cook in a small pot on my first try.

My Midea Pressure Cooker

This is a review based on my recent purchase of Midea Pressure Cooker. A similar review is also posted on BestBuy.com (4-star review).

My golden pot. No, it's not made of gold.

Before I bought this pressure cooker, I had a quick search online. I didn't see any negative review about it, although there isn't many. The price was so good and I took the chance. I didn't regret buying it because I've been using it twice a day during my first week of "trial".

I have tried every setting on this pressure cooker. My favorite is the Soup setting. The pressure builds up and the time starts to ticking. There is an internal weight measuring device to know how long it will need to cook. This 10-cup capacity for rice cooking is huge. So, I don't plan to replace my current 4-cup rice cooker. The rice came out really airy but needs to be consumed within a day. The rice quality degrades after being refrigerated after 2 days.

Below is my breakdown on each setting:

• Brown Rice - 18 minutes to start with 3 cups of rice
• Steam - default at 30 minutes, can be set at 1 to 60 minutes
• Soup - 20 to 45 minutes
• Slow Cook - 8 hours and can't adjust. Not sure if it's defective
• Beans - 30 to 60 minutes

After my first week of trial, I began to find Midea products online. It's a popular brand for kitchen appliances in Hong Kong. I also read the blog about their pressure cookers as well as learned some history and tricks in cooking certain type of food.

My only pet peeve was the instructional manual being highly inefficient and translated badly. There isn't any real recipe on there, only how to get started. I was overwhelmed with warning phrases. Yes. It's really dangerous if you don't obey. But it's far safer than the stove top pressure cooker. I'd rather unplug the cooker to release the pressure than using the lever.

Here are some of my recipes - http://loucancook.blogspot.com/search/label/Midea%20Pressure%20Cooker