Instant Pot Experimenting

Honey Garlic Chicken and Rice Pilaf   (Instant pot is just for the rice.) We didn't have brown rice (when did we run out?) so I used white with the same ratios in the instant pot and it worked great. I omitted the salt in the rice with full salt chicken broth, and it was perfect. Shannon said to do quick release for rice. We didn't have reduced sodium broth for the chicken either and then Hans put more salt on the raw chicken, and it was a bit too salty :(.

Refried Beans  We need longer than 35 minutes--maybe try 40? We used full sodium chicken broth and omitted the salt. I knew I would need to add more salt when mashing them, but I needed to add quite a bit! I didn't have time for a natural release--does that make a big difference on cooking times? I forgot to buy a jalapeno, so I added cumin.
Pinto Beans (not to mash) Oct. 2017: Covered generously with water, added some chicken Better than Bouillon, dried onions and cumin. 38 min on high, but could do less. Using some for chili tonight, saving some for healthy quick snacks and freezing the rest.

Mashed Potatoes  These were perfect--could do even more potatoes to milk mixture ratio.

Au Gratin Potatoes Such an easy dish (I added some cubed ham to make it dinner). This does call for broiling them in a different dish for a crispy top layer, but you could skip that step.

Chili Garlic Instant Pot Noodles These are really good. Following the recipe (except I couldn't find the brown rice noodles and had to use regular rice noodles), they're rather salty, so I steamed some more veggies for 10 minutes on my stove and added them--so good! I'd do reduced sodium soy sauce if you aren't adding more veggies. I tried adding some veggies into the instant pot the second time (hoping they wouldn't get too mushy), and while the taste was still good, and the veggies weren't mush, they kind of clouded up the dish itself so that everything didn't look as crisp anymore (the texture wasn't great). So I like veggies cooked separately, but is that worth it to use the instant pot when you could just do it all on the stove at that point?