Instant Pot Tom Yum Soup

Bring the taste of take-out back to your kitchen with this Instant Pot soup recipe

What do you do when you can’t travel much due to COVID-19 restrictions? Bring the cuisine back to your kitchen of course! I’m making the best of the situation by cooking all my favorite foods at home. One of my favorite Thai restaurants was right next to the aerial studio I go to. My friends and I would go to this corner restaurant called Thai House. Every time I eat at the restaurant, I order their Tom Yum soup (with Pad Thai of course). Their soup was amazingly delicious because it was made fresh to order every time. It came to the table served piping hot with the aroma of lemongrass taking over my senses. I enjoy ordering the Tom Yum soup with shrimp because the shrimp are large and I love the flavor it adds to the soup. It didn’t matter what season it was because I order their soup all year round. The warm, grounded feeling I experience after eating this soup hits the spot after a tough workout. Although I’ve never been to Thailand, I felt inspired to recreate this masterpiece.

As always, I took the dish and added more veggies to pack more of a nutritional punch. I used my Homemade Vegetable Stock to add a level of freshness that I can’t get by using a canned broth. While this soup may run you $11-13 for a large portion, you can spend that and get 4-5x the number of meals. Saving money and being able to eat quality food during a pandemic is one of the best ways to keep healthy. Creating this recipe in the instant pot is a quick and convenient way to lock in a bunch of flavors. Save time and feed your entire family with my recreation of Tom Yum Soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb shrimp (larger 16/20 shrimp preferred)

• 6-8 cups homemade vegetable stock

• 2 cups zucchini squash or yellow squash, chopped

• 1 cup carrots, julienned

• 1 cup green cabbage, chopped thin

• 1 15 oz can of baby corn

• 1 cup spinach

• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms or oyster mushrooms (optional)

• 4-5 stalks lemongrass

• 2 kaffir lime leaves (or bay leaves if you can’t find any)

• ⅓ cup liquid aminos or soy sauce

• ¼ cup fish sauce (omit if vegetarian)

• 3 cloves garlic, peeled

• 2 inch knob ginger, peeled

• Handful of cilantro

• Fresh squeezed lime, for serving

Directions:

1)      Chop fresh vegetables. Place all of them except mushrooms and spinach into the instant pot.

2)      Add the stock, garlic, ginger, kaffir leaves, sauces, and lemon grass into the instant pot.

3)      Turn setting to pressure and set the temperature to high heat. Lock the lid in place (you’ll hear a short melody to let you know it’s locked) and set timer for 15 minutes.

4)      Open the lid, add mushrooms, spinach, shrimp, and cilantro. Adjust seasonings to taste. Close the lid again and cook for 5 more minutes until the shrimp is cooked.

5)      Remove garlic ginger, kaffir leaves, and lemongrass. Serve with freshly squeezed lime and enjoy!

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The Best Pasta Salad

I don’t know about you, but the holidays always inspire me to think of my best culinary creations to share with friends and family.

It brings me joy to be able to share recipes not only that taste good but also has plenty of nutritional benefits.

When you think of the 4th of July, what do you associate that with? BBQs, fireworks, and summertime are the first 3 topics that come to mind.

A typical BBQ meal consists of burgers, hot dogs, chips, baked beans, some sort of dip, and of course, potato and pasta salad. I’m not even going to get into the beverages.

In my opinion, you gotta have something refreshing to cool down the heaviness from the meat. I can’t just eat a burger with chips and call it a meal. Protein and carbs are not a complete meal without vegetables. Sure, you’re getting all 3 sources of macronutrients, but you are missing out on vital nutrients your body needs to perform its activities for daily life.

My experiences with going to a BBQ is feeling sick to my stomach afterward. Bloating, lethargic, and foggy are a few symptoms to describe what happens after I consume that type of food.

This year, I made the decision to take my power back into my own hands and prepare food for guests at a party I attended.

Not only did I cook black bean and salmon burgers, but I made a pasta salad with roasted veggies to have a more balanced meal.

The pasta salad stole the show at the party. And of course, my homemade guacamole didn’t even make it to dinnertime. Meat can take a back seat.

I dropped the mayo-based calorie monstrosity and use an oil-based dressing instead for a healthy dose of omega 3’s. An example would be extra virgin olive oil. Make sure to check the label to see if it’s pure and not mixing other oils like canola.

Also, if you look at the ingredients for a lot of oil-based pasta salads you would normally buy at the store, the list goes at least 30 deep. A lot of them use soybean or cottonseed oil, which are high in omega-6 fatty acids.

Knowing what’s going in my food allows me to make better choices and feel better about what I’m putting into my body.

Once you try my pasta salad, you will never want to go back to buying the store-bought version ever again.

Find my recipe below:

Ingredients:

For the Roasted Vegetables:

• 1 cup shredded green cabbage

• ½ white onion, sliced into strips

• 1 red pepper, sliced into strips

• 1 zucchini, sliced into strips

• 2 serrano peppers, sliced into strips

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped

• 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, divided

• Salt and pepper, to taste

  ** Note: You can add whatever vegetables you want. I added whatever I had on hand.

For the Pasta Salad:

• 1 box of gluten-free pasta of choice (I prefer Banza chickpea pasta)

• 1 15 oz can quartered artichoke hearts, cut in half

• 1 cup mixed greens (I used spinach and arugula)

• 1 serving Italian Dressing (Find my recipe here)

• Garnish with fresh herbs (I used parsley and cilantro) and parmesan cheese

Directions:

1)      Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Cut all your vegetables and lay them on a foiled (or two) baking sheets.

2)      Add olive oil, salt, and pepper to the vegetables. Peel the garlic and put it on the baking sheet. Cook the vegetables for 25-30 minutes stirring after 15 minutes.

3)      While the vegetables are cooking, combine the ingredients to make for the Italian dressing.

4)      Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.

5)      When the veggies and pasta are done, chop the garlic and let everything cool.

6)      To serve, combine the pasta, veggies, greens, artichokes, and Italian dressing. Stir well to make sure the dressing gets coated evenly throughout the dish. Serve with chopped herbs and parmesan cheese. Enjoy! :) You can also make this a full meal by adding a piece of cooked chicken or fish to the dish.

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Homemade Vegetable Stock

How to make homemade vegetable stock using the scraps from leftovers.

I can’t believe I only started using this technique recently. I don’t know about you, but I grew up eating bullion cubes as a base for my soup with some water. Little did I know how much sodium is in those things. Once I read the ingredient label, I swore I would never cook with one again. The beauty of this technique is that you’re saving vegetable scraps from parts you would normally throw away. All of the peels and butts of the vegetables you don’t normally eat are the perfect medley for creating a homemade stock. On top of no longer wasting parts of the vegetables, you’re saving money by no longer buying broth from the store. Thanks to this recipe, I have been able to elevate my dishes with a level of freshness that I have not been able to achieve in the last 8 years of cooking. Find my life-changing recipe below.

Ingredients:

• 4-6 cups leftover vegetable scraps such as onions, carrots, celery, green onion, and asparagus

• Chicken fat from 2 lbs chicken breasts ** optional

• 3-4 cloves fresh garlic, peeled

• 1/4 cup Seitenbacher Vegetable Broth Seasoning

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• ½ tsp Italian Seasoning

• 1 tsp fresh rosemary

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• 1/2 tsp ground mustard

• 2 scoops Herbs de Province

• 2 bay leaves

• 8-10 cups water, divided

Directions:

1) Save enough vegetable scraps within a 2-week period to make the process worth your time. Leave the scraps sealed in Tupperware or in the fridge.

2) Add water, fresh herbs, vegetables, and chicken fat to a large stockpot. Only add enough water to fill to the top of the veggies.

3) Bring to a boil for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and add more water. Bring to a boil for 15 more minutes. Repeat process 2x for a total of 1 hour.

4) Remove from the heat and let it cool for a few hours. Once cooled, with a thin-lined strainer and transfer it to Mason jars (or Tupperware if you don’t have any).

5) Enjoy with soups, stews, or as part of a sauce for your favorite dish! Will keep up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

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