Homemade

The Instant Pot, if you haven't heard, is the octopus of kitchen appliances, with seven functions in one like an army of arms steaming your vegetables, defrosting and baking your chicken, and perfectly cooking your pasta into one lovely dinner—all in under 15 minutes. It'll probably bake you a cake and frost it, too for all I know. It's truly a wonder.

I know I sound like an infomercial right now, and I expect I'll probably carry on like this for another three weeks (at least). But here's how how I went from kitchen drop-out to head cheerleader for the IP team:

• Last year a close friend of mine starts talking about some crazy kitchen trend. I ignore her. 
• She alerts me—via chat—that a pretty substantial Amazon sale is going on. She convinces me that despite recently dropping down to one income, my family should invest in one. She's very convincing. 
• I decide it will be a "Christmas present" for my "husband," which will justify its hasty purchase, so when it arrives in the mail I tuck it away in our basement. It's summer.  
• Our other close friend buys one at the same time, and from that day on, I hear nothing but nonstop IP recipe reviews from both of them. I feel completely left out, annoyed that the holidays are so far away, and based on the chatter, not entirely convinced of the investment. What was I thinking? 
• At last, Christmas Eve: when deliberating on how we'll cook the turkey, I resist a gigantic urge to give my husband his "gift" a little early, but am talked out of it (by him). I will regret this later.  
• Christmas comes and goes. I completely forget to wrap and give my "gift" to "Erin". It remains in the basement until sometime later. I'm thinking about Curry (as I often do) when, in a flash, I remember the Instant Pot. I yell to my husband that he has a late Christmas present to open! I don't even pretend like wrapping it is an option. 
• After a rather weak reception by said recipient, I spend the next 72 hours memorizing the manual, studying the IP forums, and cooking the next five consecutive meals in the IP. 

I'm happy to report that mashed potatoes, green beans, and steel coat oats have a thumbs up. For dinner tonight, I steamed kohlrabi, caramelized onions and mushrooms, and cooked a batch of wild rice to perfection. Hooray for gifts that are actually for yourself!

Kitchen-sink cooking

Some of the best meals I've made in my life were co-opted from others, taking scraps of this, and scraps of that, and re-combining them into "new" dishes. Leftovers from restaurants are packaged to go only to reappear the next day, dressed casually in a new outfit: shards of Thai vegetables folded into a scramble (to make a dish "breakfast" simply crack an egg over it), taco bits and black beans turn into hearty salad toppings, and plain white Chinese rice (who doesn't end up taking a container or two of that home?) become milk porridges, fried rice stir-fries, and leftover "mashups" (a veritable kitchen sink of one-pot meals. Let's call it.... a rice-or vegetable-based slurry?). Homemade savings,  too—whether last night's mashed potatoes, uneaten turnips or broccoli, or yesterday's stale bread and vegetable soup—can be refreshed by combining it in some manner with the protein de rigueur: grilled chicken and ta da! Enchiladas, mystery casseroles, and thick melange stews. Even sauces, yes, an explosion of flavors held in tiny containers, become inspiration for entire dishes in my kitchen. They get dumped and stirred into just about everything I make, the surprise ingredient that is often even a surprise to me.