Beef Stew (Instant Pot, Gluten Free)

There are some days that just don't go as planned.
This week, I had planned on grocery shopping Saturday morning, but other things came up and I never made it there.  So, I went on Sunday afternoon.  By the time I got home it was almost 4:00, and the Beef Stew I had planned to make for dinner from Once Upon A Chef wasn't going to work.

Enter my Instant Pot.  I had a fresh package of beef stew meat, but was lacking hours of cooking time.  I quickly searched online (Pinterest, of course, where else?) and found the perfect recipe for Instant Pot Beef Stew from Family Fresh Meals.  The only problem was, it wasn't gluten free and I was starving.

So, I adapted the recipe a little bit to make it gluten free.  I thickened the gravy differently, using a packet of McCormick's Gluten Free Brown Gravy mix.  I also didn't add the corn or the peas because I didn't have any in the freezer.

But it was so good!  We all liked it, and I didn't tell anyone else it was gluten free and they never asked.  There were 4 of us, and even though we all had seconds, there was still enough leftover for lunch the next day.  I really liked this recipe!  It took about an hour from start to finish, and that hour includes the time for the Instant Pot to heat up and the sitting time afterwards while it depressurizes.

Here is what it looked like in the pot before I cooked it:

And here it is ready to be spooned into bowls:

And here is a bowl ready to eat:

This is a great recipe, and using the Instant Pot really saves time!  Thank you Family Fresh Meals!

Here is the recipe I used, adapted from Family Fresh Meals:
For a printable copy, please click HERE.

So yummy!  Definitely a keeper!

If you like this recipe, check out my Pinterest Instant Pot Board!  Just click on the Pinterest button at the top of the right sidebar to check out all of my boards.
To see where I share my blog posts, click HERE.

Sunday's Ham and Sweet Potatoes

How are y'all doing?  I hope your week is off to a good start!

I just wanted to share a quick photo of yesterday's dinner (at least part of it).  We had ham and sweet potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, rolls, and apple pie for dessert.

I decided to try baking the sweet potatoes in my Instant Pot, and they turned out really great!  And so easy!  I just let the ham (which, by the way, was a spiral cut ham from Aldis and they are SO GOOD!  If you haven't tried one, you should!) stay warm in the oven while the sweet potatoes were cooking in the Instant Pot.  It took about 35 minutes to make 4 of them, and they turned out soft, creamy, and oh so good topped with butter and pumpkin pie spice!  If you have an Instant Pot, definitely try making your sweet potatoes this way.  I am definitely making these again!

When I put the sweet potatoes on the plate, I just snapped a quick picture so you could see all their yummy goodness!  The skin peeled right back (see it at the top of the sweet potato?  It kind of looks like a bay leaf!) and the insides were creamy and yum!

So easy to do!  Here is how I made them:
1.  Pour 1-1/2 cups of water in your instant pot.
2.  Use the trivet.  Scrub the sweet potatoes.  Put 4 medium sweet potatoes on the trivet in the Instant Pot.
3.  Put the lid on, make sure it's sealed, and cook them on Manual for 18 minutes.
4.  Do a natural release, about 15 minutes.
5.  Take them out, butter them, and enjoy!  I sprinkled pumpkin pie spice on the melted butter, which was really good!

All in all it took about 35 minutes to make the 4 sweet potatoes.  If you try it, let me know how yours turn out!  We all thought this was the way to make them from now on!

Gluten Free Salisbury Steak and Gravy (Instant Pot)

Remember these?  I used to LOVE TV dinners when I was little.  It was a real treat to eat out of aluminum foil tins, and what a challenge it was to try and eat those vegetables!  As a child, that was the only way I got to eat Salisbury Steak.

Throughout the course of our marriage, over 100 or 200 years now, I've tried to make Salisbury Steak a couple times.  It never turned out very well, so I gave up and figured it was one of things that Swanson mastered but I would never get.

Fast forward to Monday and my Instant Pot.  And a wonderful recipe from the blog Live Simply.  Oh, my goodness.  We really enjoyed this!  To me, pure comfort food!

I tweaked the recipe just a little bit.  For one thing, I used all gluten free items.  I did not have gluten free panko bread crumbs (Live Simply's recipe called for panko bread crumbs), so I just used plain gluten free bread crumbs.

The other tweak I made was that I browned the beef patties in a skillet on the stove.  Live Simply's recipe said to brown them on Saute in the Instant Pot, but that seemed like a no-no to me.  First off, I don't want to be reaching down into a deep hot pot to flip over beef patties.  And I made 7 patties, so it would take too long to do 2 patties at a time in the Instant Pot.  So I just used a large skillet and browned the patties 2-3 minutes on each side.  To me, much quicker and I didn't worry about burning my arm.

This turned out so good!!  We loved the gravy!  It was so good on the mashed potatoes AND the beef!  My new favorite gravy recipe!  Here is what my dinner plate looked like:

So good!

Here is the tweaked recipe, or you can head over to Live Simply and use that one!

For a printable version, click HERE.

Thanks, Live Simply, for a wonderful recipe!

This recipe is linked to Meal Plan Monday #103.