Spicy Instant Pot Taco Soup

This is a recipe for the laziest nights. No joke. If you can bring yourself to chop an onion, along with a couple cloves of garlic - the rest of this taco soup creation is dump-and-stir. And it's delicious! Here's the deal - you can make it in an Instant Pot. You can make it on a conventional stovetop. It's also occurring to me that it's probably a perfect slow cooker stew as well.

The soup? It is a hearty melding of beans, and corn, and taco spices, and quinoa. I bring the creaminess and crunch factor in via the toppings - toasted pepitas for the later, ripe avocado, and a dollop of yogurt for the creamy.

For reference, this is the Instant Pot I used for this recipe: Instant Pot DUO Plus 6 Qt 9-in-1

If case you're interested, here is where all the Instant Pot recipes live.

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Deviled Eggs

This is a recipe for beautiful deviled eggs, but before we get to it, I'll ask that you let me tell you about the last couple of days first. I know the eggs are distracting, I mean, look at them! If I could give you one right through the screen, I would.

But the setting we enjoyed them in was even better. This past weekend I saw coastal wildflowers blooming purple and yellow, misty morning vistas, colorful buoys and wave-whipped fishing boats. I saw a friendly covey of quail, flashy red-winged blackbirds, sleek, needle-nosed blue herons, and a single jack rabbit with ears tall and straight. There was crystallized honey the color of creamy butterscotch, and seals bobbing amidst the rocks at the surf line. I was visiting friends in Bolinas - the perfect overnight. We had a tasty dinner of mostly leftovers, morning coffee by a fire. When it came time to fall asleep, it was so quiet compared to nights in San Francisco, all I could hear was my heart beating. Even better than the peace and quiet, I came home with a sack of fruits from a monstrous avocado tree. These deviled eggs were part of our dinner spread. Leftover from Friday's lunch, they made the trip north with me.

The filling is mixed, mashed, and fluffed into a light herb-flecked dollop. Toasted almonds add the crunch, chive flowers bring the pretty. They're not technically deviled, as there is no paprika or mustard in this version, but you can always tweak the filling to your liking with either.

I pulled over to look up the coast from the cliffs above Stinson Beach looking north. The morning grey had yet to clear. The next shot is the view when I opened my eyes in the morning from perhaps the best guest room ever. And my leftover box packed for Bolinas - soup, eggs, Josey Baker Bread, various toppings and condiments.

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Fregola Sarda, the Perfect Lunchy Brunch Dish

I thought we could welcome spring with one of my favorite recipes from Near & Far. It's the perfect lunchy, brunch dish, and it's made with fregola. Fregola is a beautiful, tasty Sardinian pasta made from hard durum wheat flour -- rolled, sun-dried, and toasted to a mix of shades of yellow, gold, and brown. The pasta is rustic and nutty, each grain with a raggy surface adept at catching flavor. It's so good.

Toss the fregola with ribbons of endive, toasted hazelnuts, capers and basil, and you have a salad that is a little bit nutty, a hint briny, herbaceous, and filling. I tend to make this during shoulder seasons. As spring evolves into summer, or as summer shifts into fall -- tweaking the herbs based on what is available and vibrant.

It's worth sourcing fregola if you can. That said, this is also great using orzo pasta, or Israeli couscous. I like the grip of the fregola, but sleeker orzo is always a crowd pleaser.

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Simple Beet Fettuccine

If you've never made homemade pasta before, this is a great place to start. Fresh pasta is a lot less time-intensive than you might think (really!). You knead the dough by hand, and you cut the pasta dough into fettuccine noodles in one of two ways - by hand, or with a pasta machine. The pasta machine is more precise, but there is a lot of charm in hand-cut noodles - both are special.

I love this beet juice-spiked fettuccine, the beets lend a beautiful pink color, and you can play around with how pale or saturated your noodles are by adding more or less beet juice. You can, of course, substitute other liquids, or use yellow (or orange) beets. If you have success with these noodles, use the recipe as a jumping off point for other flavors.

A couple of tips - don't skimp on the kneading time. You want a silky, even-textured dough before wrapping it, and then letting it rest (and hydrate) a bit.

One detail to emphasize here, I call for semola flour here (different from semolina) - semola is fine, powdery and talc-like durum wheat, semolina is often coarser. I blend it with either whole wheat pastry flour, or finely ground rye flour here.

You can enjoy the noodles in endless ways. They are beautiful in a simple broth with herbs. We had them for lunch topped with lots of sautéed mushrooms, a splash of cashew milk, popps seeds, scallions, toasted walnuts, and a big squeeze of lemon.

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A Flavorbomb List of Essential Curry Pastes

One of the questions I'm asked often is, "what brand of curry paste do you use?" It's easy to buy a range of red, yellow, or green Thai curry pastes. You can purchase tubes and jars of Indian curry pastes, or Japanese curry powders. They're aromatic, flavor-boosts, and the components I deploy most when pulling together a quick weeknight meal. That said, it can be tricky to know which ones are good, and more times than not, I reach for a curry paste I've made from scratch. I keep them frozen flat in snack-sized baggies. Just break off however much you need, and you're all set. This is a list of favorites, and I'll add to it over time! Make your own, and take notes, the best part about them is you can adjust them to your liking.

1. Lemongrass Turmeric Curry Paste -
This is the curry paste I make most often - it's vibrant, electric yellow in color, and intensely flavored. Made with a shallot base coupled with ginger, and garlic, turmeric, and serrano chiles, it's the sort of thing you can use to make a broth, or flare out simple preparations like scrambled eggs or fried rice. Get the recipe here.

2. Night + Market All-purpose Curry Paste -
I love this curry paste - wildly aromatic and mildly spicy, with citrus and pine notes built on a garlic foundation. It's the A.P.C.P. - All-Purpose Curry Paste from Kris Yenbamroong's Night + Market Cookbook. If you're looking for a great red curry paste to try at home, this is a home run. Get the recipe here.

3. Massaman Curry Paste -
If you can handle heat, this paste is one to try. A range of warm spices, crushed peanuts, and green cilantro dance on a stage with bird chiles and garlic, and so much more. Get the recipe here.

4. Winter Green Miso Paste -
Not technically a curry paste, but I like to use it in a very similar way. This is an herbaceous, green miso paste with some garlic bite, rounded out with lots of scallions, cilantro, ginger, and some rosemary. A favorite wintertime paste. Get the recipe here.

5. California Tom Yum Soup Paste -
I use my tom yum paste in a Cali-centric version of vibrant, brothy tom yum soup you likely know from many Thai restaurants. Part of its magic is the way it plays sweet off sour, balancing herbaceousness, feisty heat, and just the right amount of saltiness. This links to the recipe for the tom yum soup, but the paste recipe is nested in there, and you can make a big batch. Get the recipe here.

6. Anna Jones Curry Pastes -
Be sure to check out this curry paste feature by Anna Jones. I love the way Anna breaks each paste down into five elements here - aromatics, oil, spices, liquid, chile and a top note added later. Get the recipe here.

Give a shout in the comments if you have a homemade curry paste recipe that you really, reaally love. Always looking to expand my all-star curry paste line up! xx!

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