SALTED CARAMEL CHOCOLATE POT

As you might know from previous blog posts, I am obsessed with salted caramel - it is my favourite - salted caramel cupcakes, salted caramel brownies, Haagen Dazs salted caramel ice cream, Green and Blacks salted caramel milk chocolate thins…..you get the picture!! Therefore when I saw a recipe for salted caramel chocolate pots in Olive magazine, I couldnt wait to make them. We had friends for supper on Saturday night and cooked roast pork belly and fennel gratin and so these made the perfect pudding.

They take 30 minutes to prepare, however you need to chill them in the fridge for a couple of hours at least and then take them out of the fridge an hour before you serve, in order for the chocolate to soften. I used glasses for the pudding however you could use kilner jars or ramekins instead….whatever you have round the house.

Ingredients for 4-6 people:

350ml double cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
200g 70% dark chocolate, chopped (I would use a combination of milk and dark next time)
50g unsalted butter, diced
100ml whole milk
creme fraiche to serve (I would use vanilla ice cream next time)

Caramel
200g caster sugar
100g butter
100ml double cream
1 tsp sea salt flakes

To make the caramel, heat 200g of caster sugar in a large, heavy based pan over a medium heat, until melted. I have never done this before and was so surprised that it actually worked!! It took about 10 minutes and I gave it a stir a few times towards the end.

Take off the heat.

I had a problem in that some of my sugar clumped together, I have no idea why! I looked it up on the Internet and if you also have this problem, add two tablespoons of tap water to the caramel, add it back to a low heat and stir to melt any lumps that have formed.

Take off the heat again and stir in the butter, cream and sea salt.

Pour into the base of the moulds, put to one side and chill. I used 4 glasses and I measured them on scales to make sure I divided the caramel evenly.

For the chocolate, heat the cream and sugar until it comes to the boil.

Take off the heat and whisk in the chocolate and butter.

Once its all mixed in, add the milk.

Allow to cool and then pour onto the caramel.

Put in the fridge for a few hours to set.

Remove from the fridge for an hour before serving to allow the chocolate to soften. Top with a spoonful of creme fraiche and serve.

These were good although not as great as I was expecting. As I mentioned in the ingredients list, I would use a combination of milk and dark chocolate to soften the taste next time and I would also replace the creme fraiche with vanilla ice cream. I think these little alterations would make all the difference and will make the pudding change from good to great.

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This Instant Pot and I are going to be best friends!

Hi folks!  Earlier this week, on Monday, I received one of two packages I had been waiting for: Lorna Sass Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure.  I had mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I was looking into getting a pressure cooker and a cookbook to go along with it.  I settled on this cookbook, which was published in 1994, to start my love affair with pressure cooking because...

1.) Chef AJ recommends the book here,
2.) the reviews said that this cookbook is almost completely vegan besides occasional suggested cheese toppings that could be replaced with nutritional yeast if I really wanted,
3.) the reviews said that even non-vegetarians will love (a.k.a. my meat and potatoes husband), and
4.) most reviews raved about their favorite recipe and I wanted to TRY THEM ALL!

After spending most of Monday evening reading soaking up its recipes and tips, and fantasizing about myself with a clean kitchen and an electric pressure cooker quietly and rapidly cooking my delicious healthy food, I hopped onto my computer to check the shipment tracking on the InstantPot IP-DUO60 that I had ordered at the same time as the book.

Amazon said it hadnt even been shipped! :(  I knew it was due to arrive anytime between October 7th to the 10th, but it was the 6th and it hadnt even left the warehouse!?!  Poo poo!

After going back to work on Tuesday (I took Monday off to recover from Leavenworth, and actually ended up with a little cold to nurse), I spent all day thinking about what recipes I wanted to make out of the book and how I wished my Instant Pot would get here sooner!

Around my lunch break on Tuesday, I checked with Amazon again for the tracking.  Hopefully it had left the warehouse by now....  It said "Delivered"!  How on earth that could happen is beyond me, but it was waiting at home for me!  After a few more hours crawled by, I left work to stop at my favorite farmers stand to pick up some produce I would need, and then headed home.

I eagerly unpacked my produce and opened my lovely, large InstantPot package!

First thing I did: read the getting started directions of course, I am a woman!  Then I washed the new parts and started a quick soak on some chickpeas for a soup I was planning on making for dinner.  Normally I pre-soak my beans, but when a pressure cooker is just waiting to be used, a quick soak would have to do.

Little did I know, the pressure cooker also works to quickly quick-soak dried beans.  A normal quick soak involves bringing a pot with dried beans up to a boil for a few minutes, then allowing the beans to stand in the hot water off of the burner for 1 hour, before then cooking the beans for 2+ hours to get them edible.

A quick soak in a pressure cooker combined 1 cup of dried chickpeas (all I needed for the recipe, but it would fit more) with 3 cups of water.  I locked the lid and set the InstantPot to high pressure for 20 minutes, then allowed the pressure to come down naturally.  This took a total of about 35 minutes to quick soak, rather than 1 hour plus.  This step could also be avoided by soaking beans overnight, which I will do from now on, but this night I didnt expect my PC to be here so soon.

(Sorry, I wish I had more pictures of the process to share, but I was just too excited to get started that I forgot to grab my camera.  More pictures will be coming when I get the hang of things!)

While the beans were cooking, I prepped the ingredients for the soup, and even had time to clean up the kitchen.  After draining and rinsing the quick-soaked beans, I filled the pot with all of the ingredients for Lorna Sass Chickpea Soup Italiano.  Set the pot for 16 minutes at high pressure, then allowed the pressure to come down naturally, for a total of around 30 minutes.

During the times the pot was cooking, there were no sounds, no dreaded hissing of the pressure cooker horror stories you may have heard.  There was actually no times that I felt that it felt unsafe, which is a relief.

I had the Chickpea Soup Italiano for dinner that night and it was delicious!  I sent Kevin to work with the leftovers from the half batch the next day. (His pictures arent as pretty as mine would have been ;)).

Chickpea Soup Italiano from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure

After packing away the leftover soup, I made a half batch of Lornas Garlicy Lentil Soup.  Since lentils cook even faster than dried beans, this soup only needed 7 minutes at high pressure, with a natural pressure release.  I found that I needed to add a bit more stock at the end than it had called for, but it made for a nice thick lentil soup.  This was my lunch today and the day before, and the wonderful aroma alone may have convinced a coworker of mine to get the same pressure cooker.

Then, this morning I steamed my breakfast kale in it.  This went super quickly with only 3 minutes at high pressure and a quick release.  No pictures of this, sorry.

As you can tell, Im super giddy about my new pressure cooker.  I may have a bit of an hiatus of creating recipes for the blog as I explore how to use this new wonderful contraption, but I will keep you guys posted on how Im doing through some of my other social media accounts (see top right of blog for links).

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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