Hello, everyone.
Welcome to a new video.
You guys have been asking me how do I cook in my kitchen?
I'm going to show you how I cook in my tiny kitchen in my Class B Hymer Aktiv van.
Let's get started.
We are going to use the Instant Pot, which I keep under my bed.
One of the things that I love to do in my kitchen is to cook really simple meals.
It's a very simple place.
I live very minimalistic, and so I also have a very small refrigerator, which means I can't
store a lot of food in here and a lot of different appliances and everything.
So, I like to use my Instant Pot for a lot of different things.
I can cook just one pot meals inside here by itself, or you might have seen these in
one of my other videos, but I like to use these pot-in-pots.
With this, you can put in different food items and cook at the very same time, which makes
it very efficient, less drain on your battery, so you're cooking everything at once.
That's important in your Hymer Aktiv van or any particular RV or van that you're using
when you have solar power.
Today, we're going to cook some salmon, some rice, and some vegetables inside of here.
I know what you're thinking.
I've said I'm vegan, but if you go back and look at my videos, I've also said I'm vegan
plus fish.
So, I haven't gotten there yet where I don't eat fish at all, so any purist out there who
is thinking, "She's not really vegan, or she's pescatarian."
That's not true either.
I don't drink any milk or eat any dairy products or eggs or anything like that.
Call it what you want.
I call it vegan plus fish, so there you have it.
One of the things that you have to do in a smaller van or kitchen space is you have to
shuffle things around sometimes in order to use the entire space in order to get your
meal prepped.
I'm just going to move our pot-in-pots over there.
I'm going to move the Instant Pot onto my bed, so it's out of the way.
Then, we need to get all of the vegetables and fish.
So, that is down here in this refrigerator.
Mushrooms and the Brussels sprout.
Fish is in here.
It's Better Than Bouillon.
It's vegetable base.
We need ginger and garlic.
Red pepper, which I have stored up here.
This is all of our ingredients for our dish.
It's really not difficult whatsoever.
It's just really a matter of chopping it all up and putting it in its place.
You know what?
I forgot the rice.
Let me get that.
We have the rice and all the other ingredients.
We're going to mix it all up and put it inside of the pot-in-pot.
I also need a bowl that I use to mix everything up, and I know it probably looks a little
junky right here, but I have all my stuff organized.
Truly, it is.
I use this white bowl a lot to mix things and to also eat out of, so it has multiple
uses which I love.
This is the bowl that we're going to use to mix everything up.
We also use ... I just have a small cutting board that I use.
It's not very big.
I have a larger one, but it's pretty easy to just keep out on the countertop and use
most of the time.
All right, so we need to get our utensils to use for our cutting.
We're going to use a knife, and we need this spoon to mix.
A fork.
Kitchen drawer is a little bit full.
I probably could downsize a little bit more, but I kind of use most everything in there.
We're going to chop everything up and put it inside this bowl and get it all mixed up.
First, we're going to cut up all of our mushrooms.
I have three here.
I love mushrooms.
All right, so I'm going to add these mushrooms into the bowl, one of the bowls.
We just have it inside here.
Grab this gigantic bag.
I just recently bought an air fryer, and I will show you guys that here soon, but I love
that thing.
It's like a mini oven.
As you know, inside here, I don't have an oven, so it's really nice to use for that.
I'm only going to do ... Let's see.
I'll just do four Brussels sprouts.
I'll just slice up these Brussels sprouts in half.
I'll also put them inside this container.
My Brussels sprouts are a little frozen.
I think that they were too close to the top of the freezer, but they'll be fine.
They'll cook in here really well.
All right, so those are cut.
All right, so the next thing is the grape tomatoes.
I love how these just steam up inside of the Instant Pot.
They get kind of smushy in there, and I like it.
It kind of bursts inside the Instant pot inside the pan and kind of coats some of the vegetables
with it.
Just gives it a really nice flavor, and it's a great color inside there.
You've got some red with your greens.
It's beautiful.
We're just going to cut up our tomatoes now.
I have half them and throw them right in.
It's pretty easy.
The next thing is the garlic.
We have our two cloves of garlic.
We have this nice little chop here.
The next item is red onion.
I like to put a little bit of red onion in there.
Not too much.
If I was sauteing this, I probably would put a little bit more, but because we're not and
we're just going to cook it inside the pot-in-pot, just want to put a little bit for some flavor.
It's not a lot.
That's not too bad.
Like that?
Yeah.
That's what we're going to do today.
Give this a quick chop.
Just a nice little rough chop.
You don't have to be precise with it.
That's the thing about cooking.
I don't really even measure stuff a lot anymore unless I'm baking or something, but I don't
bake in here.
I just throw in what I want.
I hope you guys do that too.
It's kind of more fun that way.
It doesn't always turn out the same exact way, but that's okay.
It's all good.
All right, so the next thing we're going to put in here is the rice.
Now, I'm using Jasmine rice.
I use a little measuring cup that I got with my Instant Pot.
I don't like to eat a ton of rice.
I have the vegetables in there, so I'll probably do a half of a fourth of a cup.
It doesn't have ... It's just like ... It's not even a line.
I just look here on the measuring cup, so it's not even a fourth of a cup.
I know people are going to complain that I don't wash my rice.
I've never died from it so ... at least not yet, so I'm not going to wash it.
I have to use a colander and extra water and everything for it, so if anybody has a good
reason why I should be washing my rice, let me know.
We're just going to throw that inside here now.
We need water in this as well.
I usually do about one and a half times the amount of rice that I use.
I told you I'm not really precise with this stuff.
I just kind of guess at it.
All right, so that's about it.
Lay that in there.
Next, I like to use this Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base.
It gives it a lot of flavor.
I just mix in a little bit of that inside the rice.
When I say a little, it's kind of ... It can be really salty if you're not careful, so
I just do a little bit like that.
I just mix it up here and make sure that it's all dissolved within the rice and the water.
The next thing we're going to do is we're going to mix all of our vegetables up inside
of this white bowl and get them all mixed up really well and coated with a few spices
and a little bit of sesame oil.
Not a lot, just a little bit.
I'm just going to dump it all inside here.
We're just going to drizzle a little bit of sesame oil on top.
Just to give it a nice flavor.
That's really about it at that point.
It's not a lot.
I don't like to use a lot of oil just because I am trying to lose weight.
I know many of you have commented about my weight loss.
Thank you for that for noticing.
I've been trying to eat much healthier.
Even though I'm vegan, you can eat kind of crappy being a vegan.
Like Taco Bell has bean burritos.
It's considered vegan, but it's processed food.
I've been trying to eat more whole food, not process food, and that's vegan except for
the fish, of course.
That's really helped me to lose weight.
Now, we're going to do the red pepper.
I just do a little bit for some heat.
Just a tiny bit.
All right, so the next thing is the ginger.
I buy mine already smashed up or what do you want to call it?
Minced, I guess, in this little jar.
It just says, "Squeezable ginger."
I know.
I probably should just do it myself but I don't.
I'm just going to put a little bit of that in here.
Just a tiny bit.
It gives it a little flavor.
Also, some lime juice.
Just a little bit of the lime juice.
The last thing I do is a little bit of salt and pepper.
Even though I put the red pepper in there, I do like to add just a little bit of cracked
pepper.
I also use some salt, some sea salt that I get down here.
Don't look in that drawer right now.
It's kind of bad.
I have so many legumes and beans and things from when I was in my other RV that I just
haven't eaten up, and I didn't want to throw them away, so I just shoved them all in there.
It's such a heavy drawer, but hopefully, I'll eat them soon.
Okay.
I put just a little bit of salt on this.
Not a lot because the Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base that I put in here is a little
salty.
You're going to mix your rice with your vegetables later on, and it's going to provide salt.
So, I just do a tiny, tiny bit.
The next thing is we just want to mix it all up so it's nice and coated and seasonings
are all over all the vegetables.
I've mixed all the vegetables up and I have two pots.
I need to cook rice, salmon, and all the vegetables.
The salmon is going to cook pretty quickly, so I'm going to put it in the top chamber.
The rice will be in the bottom chamber because it's a little heartier, needs a little bit
more time in the water bath below to cook.
The Brussels sprouts are also pretty hearty, so I'm going to put the Brussels sprouts in
with the rice mixer, just on top, so it cooks a little bit quicker on the bottom chamber.
Then I'll put the salmon up on the top chamber with the vegetables.
May sound a little weird, but watch and you'll see how it works.
All right, so I got to take all the Brussels sprouts out now and put them inside here.
You can leave some of the little leaves in here.
It's fine.
Just the big Brussels sprouts.
Just take all of those out and put inside here.
Now, all the Brussels sprouts are inside of the rice chamber, and we're going to put the
vegetables inside the second chamber.
You're going to see how this works.
It's going to be beautiful.
This is great for, especially solo travelers who are single and eating this way.
You could easily cook this in a larger Instant Pot if you want, if there was a couple or
even a family.
You just need a bigger Instant Pot and bigger pot-in-pot.
They sell those, so you should be able to find any of those on Amazon.
I will provide a link inside of my description box and the pinned comment so you can find
those pretty easily.
We're just going to slide our salmon, our frozen salmon, just on top of the vegetables.
Next I'm going to put a little bit of lime juice on top of the salmon.
It's frozen, so it's not going to really sink in that well, but at least it will be on the
top when it steams.
I put some ginger on top as well, just to give it a little bit more flavor as it starts
to cook.
All right, so now we have our two dishes.
They're ready to go.
We just need to put the lids on them and stick them in the Instant Pot and they'll be cooking
away.
I just like to put all of my stuff away really quickly too before I start cooking just because
it makes it so much easier to get the Instant Pot up on top of the countertop and make sure
that everything is ... I like everything to be really tidy.
Let's just say that.
I like it to be tidy before I actually put everything inside the pot.
Clears off the countertop.
Remember, I told you it's a lot about shuffling, right?
So, we're about to shuffle.
Pepper goes in here.
It's easy because everything is just really right at your fingertips, so sesame oil goes
down here.
Knives and forks.
We're going to slide inside of the sink.
I have the three quart Instant Pot.
I used to have a six quart, but it was way too big for just one person, so I downsized
when I got into this van and got the three quart.
This particular lid does not have the steamer holes in it, so I'm going to get my lid that
had the steamer holes on it so we can put that on the top chamber.
I'll show you how that works.
Take this off the bed.
This is the contraption that it actually fits into so that it all stays nice and tight inside
of here.
We want the rice with the Brussels sprouts on the bottom.
That needs to cook a little bit faster, and so if it's in the water bath in the very bottom,
it's going to get the heat from the bottom of the Instant Pot, and it's also going to
get that steam bath around it.
It's going to cook a little bit faster than the top pot.
The next thing we're going to do is put the top chamber on here.
Now, this acts as the lid to the bottom chamber.
We'll put this lid on here that has the steamer holes in it.
That will be on the very top chamber.
It's a little full, so we're going to push it down just a little bit.
It's the salmon that's on top.
It's okay.
It's not going to hurt anything.
We will put this inside of the little ... I don't know what you call this.
I call it a contraption.
It's a little device that keeps everything together.
If that makes sense.
All right.
Let's put this in our Instant Pot and get this thing cooking.
All right.
Oh, we need water inside here first.
So, you need about a cup of water as your water bath in the bottom if you're going to
use the pot-in-pot method.
Now we're just going to put in our pot-in-pot.
That's it as far as putting it all inside the Instant Pot.
You will just slide the lid on.
You need to make sure it's sealing because it is pressure cooking.
It is a pressure cooker.
We need it to be sealed, so make sure that says sealed and that it's completely locked.
It'll give you a little noise.
I don't know if you heard that.
I'll show you again.
That's open.
There's closed.
It lets you know that it's closed and you can feel it.
You know, you're tugging on it.
It's really closed.
And then it's in the sealed position, so you're good to go.
I know a lot of people can be afraid of pressure cookers.
I've never had an issue, and I was a little nervous in the beginning too just because
I hadn't dealt with one before.
But once you get used to it, it's so easy.
I think you're going to really love it.
It's just easy to cook, especially in these small spaces and for one person, so I love
it.
We're going to put it on pressure cook for nine minutes.
If you're not familiar with the Instant Pots, what happens is you set it for nine minutes
and it's not going to take nine minutes to cook.
It has to actually get up to pressure, so what will happen is this will say on.
Once I turn this on, it'll say on.
And then once it gets up to pressure, then it will put nine minutes on the clock.
And then it will start to pressure cook all the way down to zero minutes.
Then it'll just keep it warm for you until you're ready.
It says off right now.
We're going to hit pressure cook.
It says 10 minutes on the clock is what it just comes up with automatically, but we want
nine.
We're just going to hit the minus sign to nine.
Then you'll see in just a minute it's going to kick on and just say on.
There it goes.
It's going to now start getting up to pressure, which is a good thing.
You might hear some noises coming out of this, even a little bit of steam as it starts to
get up to pressure, but once it gets up to pressure, there's this little button over
here that will pop as it gets to pressure.
It'll pop up and that means that it's at pressure, and you should see the clock show nine minutes
on there.
That's it right now until it's done cooking.
I'll come back to you when it's done.
Just one more minute and we're done.
It's keeping it warm.
It says zero, zero, zero because it's now going to count the timer up for how many minutes
it's been on warm.
We're going to keep it here and let it natural release until it's all released for about
10 minutes.
It's all done.
We're ready to go.
We're going to open up the lid.
I just double check, even though I've done natural release, you want to make sure all
the steam is out.
I put a little towel on top of it to vent it, so you just flip it over.
You just want to make sure that all of the steam has been released and that button in
the back is definitely down.
It is, so we can take the lid off.
It is hot too, so I'm going to take this out with a towel.
You just want to be careful when you open this that steam is going to come out, so just
be careful.
Just takes a second to get it off.
This is where it gets really hot.
Woo.
Right there.
Now, we'll just take this off and let's look at the rice and see how it's done with Brussels
sprouts.
That looks good too.
It's all done.
Guys, we are done.
We've got a beautiful lunch that's healthy.
Our salmon, rice, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, and mushrooms all in one pot in the Instant
Pot.
Super easy to do, and it taste great.
Let's try it out.
I usually think my stuff is pretty good.
We'll see.
Mm.
That's good.
Lots of flavor.
And the salmon, we'll get a little tomato on there too.
I think this is a winner.
All right, guys.
That is it for this video.
I hope you liked it.
If you want to see more cooking, let me know in the comments below.
If you like this video, hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't already subscribed.
You should see that button right now on your window.
Another video that you might like where I did three meals in one day using one pot,
so check that out.
Let me know how you like it too.
All right, guys.
Have a great day.
I'll see you in the next video.