Does anyone else have a love affair going on w/ their pressure cooker?

[LaLaLuna]

I have always relied heavily on my pressure cooker and I just got a new one ... actually, a set of two. I am SOOOO jazzed! I've been cookin' everything in it lately! Anyone else out there love these things? What are your favorite things to cook in them? Risotto is a fave of ours, as well as roasts of meat (the only successful way I've ever cooked large chunks of meat...). Plus soups- oh my gawd, the soups.

How about you?!

[Doodlebugsmom]

Yes, I too love my pressure cooker. I love to make brown rice in it. Soups are great too, esp. ones with dried beans. I also throw boneless, skinless chicken in there and cook it. It gets so tender! Then I shred it with a fork and add some barbecue sauce. Quick, yummy bbq sandwiches!

[sagewinna]

I LOVE mine! I use it all the time to cook beans, split peas, lentils, potatoes, you name it! My DH uses it too. It is great for days you don't plan ahead!

[fromscatteredtribe]

why don't more people especially busy people give the pressure cooker a try? I always feel so weird because only my grandmother seems to know what I mean when I talk about them. They aren't so scary any more and not so loud. Last night I had to go to a pot luck and had some black beans soaked but I needed to completely cook them in less than two hours...impossible. I ran in and started chopping peppers and jalapenos and onions and garlic..threw in some spices and in just over five minutes on high pressure I had the most amazing black beans.

[LaLaLuna]

I dont' get either why more busy people aren't using them. Seems like everyone I know has one of those slow cookers- I can't get organized enought to throw together a meal and get the kids ready for school and then go to school myself in the morning ... plus I haven't ever tasted a slow cooker dish that i really like or that doesn't taste exactly like every other slow cooker dish out there...

Pressure cooker, OTOH- no problem! I can have dinner on the table in half an hour most nights. I have two awesome cookbooks I use all the time: Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure and Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna J. Sass. She's an awesome cookbook writer- every single thing I've made with her recipes is delicious.

Doodlebugsmom- what's the trick to making rice? I scorch it most of the time, unless it's risotto. I've been thinking about trying to find a ceramic dish to fit insode the cooker to see if that would help.

[Doodlebugsmom]

I put about a TBS of olive oil in the pressure cooker and add just the rice and stir it around for a few minutes before adding the water. I have never had the rice scorch. It turns out so good every time. Before the pressure cooker, I couldn't get rice to come out right to save my life!

[Quirky]

for lorna sass!

i love doing beets in the pressure cooker! fast and basic but yummy

ok now i'm motivated to get the cookbook out and make a shopping list!

[LaLaLuna]

Ooohhh...BEETS! I just discovered doing beets in the cooker. Have you ever tried them with goat cheese (soft-type) crumbled over them? It's sublime.

[geekmom]

Okay, you've convinced me. I got a pressure cooker last year to do some canning, but I got a bunch of foster kids so I didn't have the energy. Basically, I'm just scared and clueless about how to pressure cook. It has instructions and everything. Can someone either direct me to a good site with simple recipes and clear instructions or give me a recipe for it. Risotto. I have tons and tons of rice.

[OhMel]

Oooo, we just got ours on Thursday. This morning I made steel-cut oats in half the time it normally takes to make it.

One question, we got an electic model and it takes a while to heat up (like 12 minutes this morning for the oats) is this normal?

Thanks!

[reilly's momma]

OhMel, we have an electric one too, it heats up very quickly, what takes time is for the pressure to build up. I've used ours for reheating without the pressure lid & it's faster than our stove!

I'm glad I stumbled on to this thread, I posted a few months ago right after we got ours asking for veggie recipes & no one replied I figured maybe people weren't using them.

[LaLaLuna]

Geekmom; here's what I found for websites...

http://missvickie.com/workshop/schoolframe.html

plus a big ol' page of links...

http://directory.google.com/Top/Home...essure_Cooker/

If you have an extension service in your area, they could probably give you advice (or may even have pamphlets) on pressure canning. Do you have one of those great big hurkin' pots that you could bathe a dog in or is it more like a sauce pot size? It might be unwieldy to cook in a canner (unless you're really cooking for a crowd!) but I have a pressure canner too, and I really appreciate it in August when I'm trying to get through 100 pounds of tomatoes without dying of heat exhaustion!

[BusyMommy]

Thank you for posting this! I have one sitting in my cupboard that I've only ever used to make baby food.

More ideas please


-Guess the thing that scares me is I don't know when to start timing; ie. when it boils or when the steam whistle blows.:

[LaLaLuna]

I know not everyone here at MDC is a carnivore (but I am) and here is one of my all time favorite ways to use my cooker; soup stock. When we've roasted a chicken or turkey and then eaten all we can from it I take the carcass, break it into pieces and then put it in the cooker with a carrot, a stalk or two of celery and half an onion, plus a few cloves of garlic and a bay leaf or two. Add 8-10 cups of water, lock the lid and then cook it for 25 minutes. This stock has more body than any other I've ever tasted and is WAYYYY better than the stuff you buy at the store.

Sometimes we smoke a turkey on the bbq and make stock from that carcass- it's phenomenal; esp. when you use it as the liquid for cooking beans.