Cheesy Orzo

Did you get an instant pot yet? I admit, I don't use it as much as I thought I would but the other night when we had guests for dinner and a tiny window with which to get dinner ready, I used it. We also sous vide our meat for dinner so it was really hands off!

This cheesy orzo was sooo flavorful. Pretty much the best updated mac & cheese I've ever had.  My 3yo wan't a fan even though she said it was good she didn't want any. My 18m loved it!  So good.  Run don't walk to get the ingredients to make this tonight!

Recipe here and below. I used asiago cheese instead of parmesan and didn't measure exactly cause more cheese is always better, right?

Ingredients:
1/2 onion chopped
3 small cloves of garlic chopped
2 T butter
2 t olive oil
8oz orzo
2 Cups Chicken broth
1/2 t salt
1 C mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 C asiago (or parmesan) cheese
1 Cup whole milk or half & half (I used milk)

Directions:
1. Turn the instant pot to saute and add butter & Olive oil.  Add onions and cook until translucent.
2. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds
3. Add chicken broth and salt and bring to a simmer stirring. Add orzo. Put the lid on
4. Turn off the instant pot and set to manual, high pressure, 4 minutes.
5. Once the 4 minutes is up and it switches to warming, turn to quick release and wait for the button to pop. Open the lid, stir in cheeses & milk, salt to taste, serve immediately

Beef Ribs in the Instant Pot

Beef Ribs! One of my favorite things to get at a bbq restaurant are something I've never made at home because it sounds like it takes too much time. Plus, I don't have a smoker. Plus, I don't want to use the bbq for 5 hours.  Enter the Instant Pot. Talk about an all-around useful appliance! With minimal ingredients and only 40 minutes (+natural release time), I made fall-off-the-bone beef ribs. These got an A+ from everyone in my family!  Try it tonight.

Ingredients

~10 beef ribs (that's all that fit in my pot)
1/2 Jar Stubbs Original BBQ Sauce (best all around sauce I believe)
salt & pepper
1/2 C water or broth

Directions
1. Place the tray that came with the Instant Pot in the bottom of the pot. Stand the ribs up on the tray campfire style.
2. Sprinkle salt on the ribs
3. Pour water or broth into the pot
4. Pour half the jar of bbq sauce over the ribs
5. Set to sealing and use the Meat/Stew setting and add 5 minutes
6. Cook 40 minutes and let it release the steam naturally for at least 10 minutes. Do the rest of the release.
7. Serve with more bbq sauce on top

Note: You could put bbq sauce on and put it on a foil-lined cookie sheet under the broiler to caramelize it a bit but we didn't take that step so I can't speak to it