Okay I just have to brag on my new cooking skills for a second.
At the beginning of this whole thing, I got an Instant Pot. Game. Changer.
I'm really hankering for Fall to make an appearance, so I made some pumpkin squash soup. I cooked the butternut squash in my Instant Pot and it took like 15 minutes total. I used 1 butternut squash, 1 can of pumpkin puree, 1 cup of applesauce, 1 cup of almond milk, curry powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. I mixed it all up with an immersion blender and garnished with thyme and pumpkin seeds. It scratched an itch.
But THEN I made Whole30 compliant shepherds pie for dinner and it was amazing. Best meal I've had in a while because I've been lazy and not up for trying new recipes. I'm so glad I tried 2 new recipes today! Here is the link to to shepherd's pie recipe that I used. It's a meal prep recipe, but there wasn't any leftover to prep! The soup was just something I threw together hoping it would taste like Panera's Autumn Squash soup and it was close but I think next time I'll use some Nutpods for extra cream or maybe do an almond flour slurry to thicken it up and more pumpkin. Maybe you'll see that recipe in a couple weeks after I've perfected it because I WILL be making it again. Cooler weather will come faster the more nutmeg I use, right?
I really have become a better cook, though. Cooking absolutely everything from scratch used to seem like a hassle, but the more I cook, the more I begin to learn to clean as I go (I don't own a dishwasher), prep before cooking, and re-use ingredients. Little things make meal time so much easier. I don't know why chopping all the veggies beforehand make things easier and faster, but it does. I never would have done that in the past. I usually chop and put them directly into the pan but I guess I'm better at planning now. Chopping veggies that I know I'll use for dinner when I have a spare second and then storing them in the fridge is pretty helpful. Cleaning dishes as I use them is a game changer, too, because I'm not watching my food cook. Watching food cook leads to underdone, over-seasoned meals. Leaving it alone to simmer is absolutely the way to go. Just let it do it's thing.
I'm even getting my blog posts finished earlier. Look at me learning to manage my time!
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