I took this picture last summer. Yeah, this furry love in my neighbor.
Lemme just start off by saying, I am not affiliated with Instant Pot, I get nothing from them, as a matter of fact, I am quite sure they don’t know I exist. I just had a great experience…
Living in the mountains on the outskirts of Seattle has many advantages. There is nothing like waking up in a forest every single day, I often sip my cup of coffee in the living room while watching a family of deer roam through the back of the property. I even spot an occasional black bear that likes to hang out on our neighbor’s apple tree. It is serene, and just the way I love it.
But it is country living, and when a storm comes through we often lose electricity. This is precisely what happened last weekend. There was a gust of wind, and it took a massive tree out on our street. The tree also took the electrical cables that lead up to our house. We are prepared, we do have a backup generator. It is not super fancy, my husband often talks about upgrading, but I honestly don’t want to upgrade. I know it sounds weird, but I love losing electricity, which we do about 5 times a year. I light a bunch of candles, make a fire in our fireplace, and take advantage of being remote. Power outages force me to unplug, something as a busy business owner, I hardly ever do. This is mother nature’s way of making sure I take a break.
Our little backup generator is pretty good at covering the basics; keeps the refrigerators going, keeps the furnace on, and allows us to use one light at the time. The sticky wicket is cooking. We have an electrical stove (we are off the grid, no gas no city water) and I found out that the electric stove is a huge sucker of energy. Every time I turned the stove on, it just about killed the poor generator, and to make matters worse, it hardly created any heat. I panicked for a short while since I had invited my parents and two more friends over for dinner. What is a girl to do?
Thank goodness, I purchased an Instant Pot not that long ago. I transferred the food to the Instant Pot, and I was pleasantly surprised that the generator didn’t buckle. Instant Pot used so little energy, I was able to cook the three-course dinner. It did not even take longer, even though I could only cook one thing at the time, the Instant Pot is so quick that it made up the time! I served appetizers, salad, celeriac mash, and fish. For dessert my mom made a flowerless almond cake, my job was the cranberry sauce and whipped cream (I always hand-whip from scratch and no sugar, so electricity makes no difference.)
Everything worked out perfectly, and it was the most romantic dinner I ever hosted. Regan decorated the living room and dining room with many dozens of candles. We were suddenly transported to the 18th century. We all had so much fun, I am thinking of hosting more ‘off the grid candle parties’ in the future.
Lesson learned! Never cancel a party because you ran into minor problems like a downed electrical line. Think outside the box, our best moments are when things are imperfectly perfect! Oh and use an Instant Pot if you want to save on electricity!
Here is my recipe for a celeriac mash. I learned this beauty from my friend Nichole. Way, way tastier than mashed potatoes, and way better for you.
Ingredients:
Instant Pot uses little energy and very versatile.
4-5 celeriac root peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
3-4 cloves of garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste
3 tablespoons of cream cheese
The process:
Clean, peel, and dice the celeriac root. Place in enough water to cover and bring it to boil. Cook until the celeriac is readily pierceable with a fork.
Drain water off the celeriac, transfer to a bowl, add cream cheese, salt, pepper, and (If you want a milder garlic flavor use garlic powder)
Take a large fork or a potato masher and start mashing.
Done
Perfect replacement for the low nutrition, high carbohydrate potato!
Have a great day, Dora