My oldest is in her first year of her undergraduate education. Her school has a midterm break in October. It fell on a weekend when my husband traveled to DC to run the Army 10-miler. With both my girls home, I decided to try and make some good eats for us to enjoy. My oldest had requested some hot Buffalo Chicken Dip. I obliged! While at the store collecting ingredients and a few other things, I decided to grab a handful of items that could turn into a pretty awesome dinner.

First, I found an Instant Pot recipe for BBQ beef and decided to give it a whirl. I knew even my picky pants youngest might eat it if it involved MEAT…she’s a fan.

The key, I have found, is not to necessarily let her see what things look like going into the Instant Pot. Unless she’s helping prepare it from the start and watching it build into this final photo on the left, it’s best to just put on the lid and turn the machine on quickly.

This beef recipe only took a short amount of time (an hour-ish) to be completely ready to enjoy. The girls ate a few helpings; my oldest and I put some Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce on top and ate the shredded beef on sandwich buns.

Anytime we have BBQ anything, the obvious choice for a side is macaroni and cheese. I had picked up the ingredients for it and then realized once the beef was resting that I hadn’t really even started the side dish.

Don’t worry, friends! A quick wash of the Instant Pot insert, and we were back in action. This mac & cheese recipe literally took 4 minutes once the pot came to pressure.

You cannot BEAT that! Our side was ready in no time. I will say that it took me a bit longer because I like to shred my own cheese rather than using the bagged varieties.

I chose to use some of the spices from our favorite baked macaroni & cheese recipe in this dish as well.

Next time, I will plan my cooking better and have time to bake off the mac and cheese for a bit so we can employ the crunchy bread crumb topping everyone loves so much.

Trust me when I say: no one was disappointed. Because my husband was not home to eat his usual platefuls of food, we actually had leftovers. I was able to send about a quart of mac & cheese and a takeaway container of beef back to my daughter’s dorm with her.

She was happy and I’m sure she also enjoyed the Buffalo Chicken Dip, celery and tortilla chips I packed up for her, her roomie and her boyfriend. I kind of think I managed to up my mom game just a little thanks to my Instant Pot.

While at the market, I also purchased a TON of apples. I want to try my hand at making apple butter in my Instant Pot. I better hurry, though! My youngest takes the apple-a-day saying along with the “if a little does a little good, a lot will do a lot of good” saying to heart. She’s been plowing through my apples at lightning speed! I can’t say I blame her–they are the perfect fall fruit!

I honestly think purchasing a second insert for my Instant Pot is the way to go. I’ll let you know when I pull that trigger and how I might use a second insert in planning for Thanksgiving!