IP Food: Boiled Peanuts

Happy Birthday to The Help!

The Ds and I got him his birthday gift a few weeks ago. . .a Yeti cooler for his ride.  We managed to find it in the ever-elusive gray color.

We will celebrate later today with a cake.  I am hoping Hilo will not be as crazy as it was this past week. 

Whenever it's Merrie Monarch Festival time, the town takes on a whole different persona.  We get inundated with visitors.  This is great for our economy but creates havoc with the normal flow of business and traffic.  Nakaz said it took him close to an hour to get from his place (just across the "Singing Bridge") to Target!  To put it in perspective, it took The Help, D2 and I about an hour to drive the entire length of the Saddle Road!

In an attempt to escape the craziness in Hilo, The Help, D2 and I ventured to the other side of the island.  Apparently, the rain had the same idea and met us in Kona!  Upon embarking on our journey, we passed a familiar sight...the pop-up tent on the side of the road selling boiled soybeans and peanuts, two of D2's favorite snacks.

Over the past few months, I've made multiple attempts to perfect boiled peanuts in the Instant Pot.  I have found that the ideal cooking time is somewhere between 8-15 minutes.  If you prefer your peanuts on the crunchier side, go for 8 minutes.  If you prefer them softer, then go for 15 minutes.  A 6-quart Instant Pot will hold a pound of raw (dried) peanuts. 

Many other recipes suggest using something inside the pot to keep the nuts submerged.  I have never done that.  I find that by allowing the pressure to come down naturally (about 45 minutes) and waiting an additional 15 minutes, the peanuts will all be submerged when the pot is opened.  This wait time allows the brine to penetrate and flavor the nuts.

If you prefer to make this the conventional way, I posted a recipe a few years ago.  You can find the post here.

 click on recipe title for printable recipe

Instant Pot Boiled Peanuts

     1 pound raw peanuts (dried)

     1 1/2 quarts water

     3 tbsp rock salt

     2 star anise

Place all ingredients in Instant Pot.  Place a heat-proof plate on peanuts to keep submerged. Set cooking time for 8 minutes (crunchy nuts) to 15 minutes (softer nuts) on high pressure.  When cooking is done, leave for 60 minutes before removing from pot.  Drain and serve.

Local Style Cornbread

Homecoming is done!  Another one in the books!  For the first time in a long time, Homecoming this year was held during basketball season.  This was also the first year I've actually seen alumni visiting the school during homecoming.

Many of my colleagues remarked that THIS was the homecoming they remembered.  I had to agree (even if I'm not an alum of the place I work).  There was friendly, spirited competition between classes.  As always, the seniors came out looking strong.  This was especially apparent in the tug-of-war competition.  I'm sure you can imagine how large the senior boys were (several of them were starters on the district-winning football team) compared with the freshmen.  Thankfully, the freshmen never had to challenge the seniors.

The Student Association should be commended for putting the activities together (the school events for the week), and the entire student body also deserves a huge shout out.  While there was indeed the desire to win, the students were generally well behaved.  In previous years, there was a lot of boo-ing, but this year, there was hardly any, if at all, boo-ing.  Even when one student had a particularly difficult time with the marshmallow cube, nobody jeered.  Whew!

I really wasn't expecting to go, but I found myself at the culmination of homecoming, the basketball game against the Pahoa Daggers.  Although the Daggers play in a different division (school size), they are a scrappy team and very capable of hitting the shots.  They were the first to draw blood and at one point, they had double the points we had.  Luckily, we managed to squeak by, winning by less than a half-dozen points.  As I've said before, it's always nice to win your homecoming game.  Matsu, wish you could've been there.

With the craziness of homecoming, recovering from the Honolulu trip, and dealing with a few disgruntled students, there was hardly any time to cook dinner.  Luckily, we have several places in town which make really good chili. . .Don's Grill, Blane's Drive-In, and Zippy's.  Since he was in the area, The Help picked up a quart of chili on his way back from a late-afternoon errand.  This left me just enough time to make a pan of cornbread.  Having cornbread with chili is my idea of a great meal.

click on recipe title for printable recipe

Local Style* Cornbread

     2 blocks butter, melted
     4 eggs
     2 c milk
     4 c Bisquick
     1 1/2 tsp baking powder
     1/2 tsp baking soda
     1 1/2 c sugar
     6 tbsp cornmeal

Grease a 9 x 13" pan.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Gently combine all ingredients.  Bake 45-50 minutes.

*I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but in Hawaii, cornbread is usually sweet, almost like a cake.

06-06-17:  I absolutely hate measuring Bisquick so today I decided to get smarter and weigh it instead.  After doing some research online, people wrote that 1 cup of Bisquick weighs between 120-130 grams.  Someone also said she found that 4 cups of Bisquick weighs 500grams (or that's the equivalent she uses in her recipes).  I made this with 482 grams today, and it came out great.  I believe I will be weighing my Bisquick from now (instead of measuring it in a cup).