I posted a picture of our Butternut Squash Risotto on Facebook, and a couple of people asked me for the recipe. I put it together based on a couple of different recipes — from MakeRealFood.com and the booklet that came with my pressure cooker — so I figured I’d type up what I actually did and post it here.
OK, now here’s where your mileage may vary: Your cooking time might be different according to your pressure cooker. My dad gave me an electric pressure cooker for Christmas, and it has a risotto setting. So that’s what I used. It took 10 minutes. TheKitchn.com says it takes 6 minutes in a stovetop pressure cooker, and SkinnyMeRecipes.com says it’s 7 minutes in an Instant Pot.
A photo posted by Nichole (@nicholebutterscotch) on
Butternut Squash Risotto
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 sweet onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups butternut squash, seeded and cubed
3/4 cup dry sherry
2 cups arborio rice
6 cups vegetable stock
about 3 cups baby spinach
1 cup Italian cheese blend
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon oregano
salt and pepper to taste
Melt butter with olive oil. Salute onion, bell pepper, garlic and butternut squash for about 5 minutes or until it starts to get tender. Add dry sherry, coriander, oregano, salt, pepper and arborio rice; stir until sherry is absorbed. Add vegetable stock. Cook for 10 minutes on the risotto setting (or as appropriate for your own machine). Let the pressure release once the time is up. Stir in the cheese until the risotto is nice and creamy, then add the spinach and stir until it wilts a little.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for True Made Foods. Nichole was compensated for this post. All opinions are her own.
You can tell I liked the True Made Foods sauces, because I used a lot of what I tried. You can also tell that I forgot to take a picture of them before I opened the bottles and started eating.Once upon a time, there was a guy named Kevin. When Kevin was a kid, he was an athlete. When Kevin grew up, he was in the Army. But no matter what else he was doing, Kevin was the sort of guy who did not like vegetables. We all know that kind of guy (or gal), and some of us spend a good deal of energy endeavoring to convince a particular guy (or gal) of the veggie-avoiding type to embrace the veggie. As it so happened, Kevin’s wife Abbey was that type of gal.
Abbey wanted Kevin to have a healthier diet, so she started adding blended-up vegetables to their regular foods. Kevin not only discovered that this was not so bad, he was excited to find even more ways to add veggies to his diet. So Kevin and Abbey processed some spinach, carrots and butternut squash and added it to ketchup, and they all lived happily ever after.
Part of that “happily ever after” was starting a company, True Made Foods. True Made adds their spinach, carrot and butternut squash blend to ketchup, barbecue and sriracha-style hot sauce. They sent me a box of all three of them to try out last week. I haven’t tried the barbecue sauce yet, but I can tell you that the ketchup and “Veracha” are legitimately tasty.
True Made uses the veggies to sweeten their sauces, so the added sugar content is about half of what you’ll find in traditional ketchup. I tried the True Made ketchup on french fries. The texture isn’t as smooth as what I normally buy at the store, and it’s just a bit tangier. I don’t think you’d notice the texture if it were, say, on a burger, and I didn’t find the difference off putting at all. In fact, I think I used a good bit more ketchup than I normally do on my fries.
True Made’s Veracha is made from tomatoes, carrots, butternut squash, jalapenos, spinach and cayenne, and they say it’s “pure paleo,” if you’re into that sort of thing. I don’t use a lot of sriracha as a straight-up condiment, so I wanted to use the Veracha in a recipe. I tried a little spoonful of it before I thought about what to do with it. It’s more mild and less vinegary than the version with the rooster on the bottle, and I thought it would go nicely with honey on some grilled chicken. So I googled “sriracha honey chicken” to see if there was already a recipe out there that I could use, and lo and behold there was.
A lot of the reviewers of the Sriracha-Honey Chicken recipe AllRecipes.com said it was too spicy for their families. We have a few folks here who like spicy and a few who don’t, so I played around with the ratios a little to tone it down. Here’s what we had:
Baked Honey-Veracha Chicken
1/2 cup True Made Foods Veracha
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Whisk Veracha, honey, melted butter, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and black pepper together in a small bowl. Place chicken in a baking dish. Pour Veracha mixture over the chicken. Flip the chicken over to coat it completely. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then turn oven down to 350 and cook 15-20 minutes longer or until chicken is done.
Poppy said she would’ve preferred it with 1/4 cup Veracha and 3/4 cup honey, but the rest of us thought it was really well balanced, pleasantly spicy and flavorful. We’ll definitely have it again.
You can (and should, because it’s delicious) find True Made Foods at any Lowes Foods and some Super Targets, H-E-Bs and Whole Foods. Check out their website to find them in a store near you.
My Aunt Judy brought her layered Oreo dessert to every family Christmas gathering, because she knew how much my stepsister and I loved it. The two of us would swarm her as soon as she came through the door, and the Oreo dessert was the first thing we piled onto our plates.
There’s nothing the least bit organic or farm-to-table in this recipe. That’s probably what makes it so tasty. I haven’t tried to make it since Aunt Judy passed away — I just don’t think it’ll be the same — but one of these days I will.
Aunt Judy’s Oreo Dessert
1/2 cup butter
large container Cool Whip
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 package Oreos
8 ounces cream cheese
large package instant chocolate pudding
Layer 1: Crush cookies and mix with butter. Press into 9×13 pan and reserve a few crumbs for the top.
Layer 2: Mix 8oz cream cheese and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Put in 1/2 of cool whip. Mix and spread over Layer 1.
Layer 3: Mix pudding according to box directions and spread over dessert. Let set for a few minutes.
Layer 4: Spread the rest of the cool whip on top and sprinkle with remaining Oreo crumbs. Refrigerate.
