In this weeks’ Catching Up With The Kelnhofers my best friend came to visit, we went to a food truck park and the zoo, and we made lots of meals in our Instant Pot because it cooks meat from frozen and I had forgotten to take meat out of the freezer! Also, have you seen that we’ve been including YouTube video at the bottom of the posts?!
- My best friend came to town with one of her daughters, and it was so lovely. The kids played together and we just had a really good time.
- We went to the Milwaukee Zoo, it was so incredibly cold that it was a short trip to see the indoor animals.
- Lots of indoor time because of the weather. We played with Kinetic sand, colored, and painted nails. Here is my amazon list with all the kids stuff I always use!
- We went to the Milwaukee Food Truck Park called Zocalo. We rented a little heated green house and ordered some Peruvian food and pizza, such a fun outing!
- Last week I mentioned how we restarted our meal delivery kit subscription (Home Chef is my fave) and the kids are just so cute, they help me make the meals and love following along with the cards- read my Home Chef 2022 review here.
What I made: baked chicken parmesan pasta and meat from frozen into the Instant pot!
- This week was all about quick and comforting. We made chicken dumpling soup in the instant pot (I also include stovetop directions in case you don’t have an IP!). Nick made grilled cheese sandwiches on the side!

- What do you do when you forget to take meat out of the freezer to thaw? Use your IP! I made my Asian ground turkey and rice bowls but I used ground beef instead and made it in the instant pot.
- Here’s how:
- Take meat out of the freezer and place it into the IP
- Add 1 tbs oil – vegetable or olive oil – and cook on saute setting for 10 minutes. Add an onion if you have one.
- Then add all the sauce ingredients and 1/2 cup water or chicken stock.
- Secure the lid and cook for 8 minutes on high pressure.
- Serve over rice (I use 90 second microwave rice) with pickled veggies and green onions/cilantro if you have it.

- Perfect easy dinner for when friends are over: 5 ingredient baked chicken parmesan pasta. You put everything in a baking dish and into the oven, that’s it!!

- Vegetarian breakfast tacos-my quick breakfast when I have 5 minutes -eggs and green hot sauce for the win!!

Lynn says
We had the BEST tIme!! Benner already misses her friends!!
Sweetphi says
Aw thank you!! I miss you guys so much too!!