Celebrating cooking under pressure

I have an instant pot, my first pressure cooker ever, in the mail right now. I'm really hoping the convenience factor will help overcome my laziness to cook real food! I buy real food but then don't want to spend the time making it, on top of learning new recipes. The linked videos above are great, it really makes it feel simple, which can help overcome that mental hurdle of mine!

I have a *really, really* old Presto 4 quart pressure cooker which I admit spends most of its life either making bone broth or cooking dried beans (I do the soak overnight pre-treatment method). 25 years ago, I happened to find a stainless straight sided basket with wire handles and small wire feet, that fits perfectly into the cooker. This is incredibly handy for both making broth and cooking beans. When the cooker's cool enough to open, I can just lift the basket out, leaving the liquid behind. In the winter, I always stick a matching pot lid on the cooker and allow the cooker to cool in the house. In the summer, it's easy enough to carry it outside to cool.

This year I cut the turkey up in to pieces in was able to do it in the insta pot !  :-)     I used 2 8 quart pans.       I bought an extra turkey,   and in about 4 months I will do this again.    


I love the Insta Pot, but a Carvey is what is next on my list being able to pressure can would be the dream for me.

Jay Angler wrote:I have a *really, really* old Presto 4 quart pressure cooker which I admit spends most of its life either making bone broth or cooking dried beans (I do the soak overnight pre-treatment method). 25 years ago, I happened to find a stainless straight sided basket with wire handles and small wire feet, that fits perfectly into the cooker. This is incredibly handy for both making broth and cooking beans. When the cooker's cool enough to open, I can just lift the basket out, leaving the liquid behind. In the winter, I always stick a matching pot lid on the cooker and allow the cooker to cool in the house. In the summer, it's easy enough to carry it outside to cool.

I LOVE my old 4 qt presto pressure cooker!  It was a wedding gift from my mom who knew how handy it would be for turning those cheap tough roasts and dry beans into delicious food without taking all day to do it.  I used it with a matching lid to pop popcorn (heavy pots are hard to find, LOL) the old fashioned way.  I still treasure that old pressure cooker, just the right size for two retirees now days.  My collection of recipes comes to almost 50 pages; and that isn't the whole batch of them.  Although I have a big canner for canning (the 4 qt one only does 3 pints at a time) the small one is my go-to for sterilizing tools, bandages, and the like when I re-stock the first aid kits.  Wrapped in brown paper they are not 100% sterile but certainly a whole lot less germy than just knocking around in a box!  

Well I did it.  I am a proud owner of an Instant Pot.

What I didn't know is that I can cook desserts in it.  mmm...

The pea soup turned out amazing.  I adapted the family recipe, which usually takes three days, but I did it in four hours, only about 15 min of actual work.  

Tonight, I want to try chicken

We tried a whole, frozen chicken today.  5.5 pound bird cooked in less than 1.45 hours including prep and cool down.

Taste is excessively bland and it was a good chicken too.  It is like the cooker leached the best out of it.

r ranson wrote:The pea soup turned out amazing.  I adapted the family recipe, which usually takes three days, but I did it in four hours, only about 15 min of actual work.  

Tonight, I want to try chicken

If you like pea soup, try the Dutch variant called ''erwtensoep'' or ''snert'', it's so hearty it's a meal on its own.

risotto is fantastic!  Super happy with how this turned out in the pressure cooker.

I learned to use a pressure cooker by helping my mom make dinner - in the 1950s. Stews, swiss steak, pot full of potatoes, corned beef hash etc. My mom in turn gave me a (4 qt.)pressure cooker when I was first married (1970) which I still use today. I use my probably weekly on average, more in winter for cooking, more in summer for food storage uses. Over the years I have collected several pressure cookers - a 22 qt. canner, 4 qt. stainless steel, 2 qt. 'fry pan style' ($1 at garage sale) and 6 qt. stainless steel which is fabulous for canning small batches (4 pints) of garden produce when harvest trickles in a few tomatoes/beets/apples etc. at a time. Come winter I use my cookers on our wood stove getting extra work from BTUs otherwise only used for heating the house.

One thing I like to make is sweet/sour red cabbage. Traditionally its cooked for hours and produces an aroma many don't like. The pressure cooker makes this in minutes and with much less odor. However it still draws flies like a magnet! (even thru screens on windows!).

Today was cheesecake.

The batter made too much, so I made some cheesecake nuggets in the egg cup.  I ate it warm which might be the problem because it tases like a scrambled egg with cheese in it.  I'm not a big fan of things that taste like egg.

(update - the cheesecake was FANTASTIC the next day)

But we are having risotto at least once a week now.  It's so fast to make in this thing.  Even if I never cook anything but risotto in it for the rest of my life, it's worth it just for that.  

Today was Garlic Confit.  So delicious.

We harvested our garlic but have a huge amount leftover from last year.  So I'm pealing the last year's garlic and putting them in a dish, smother the garlic with oil, wrap it with tin foil, put two cups water in the bottom of the pressure cooker and the garlic bowl on a steamer rack.  High pressure 45 min.  

garlic confit sounds AMAZING.

I learned to use a pressure cooker by helping my mom make dinner - in the 1950s. Stews, swiss steak, pot full of potatoes, corned beef hash etc. My mom in turn gave me a (4 qt.)pressure cooker when I was first married (1970) which I still use today.

This was something like my experience, except it was my grandmother that taught me. I don't have the same pressure cooker she gave me, but I can't live without a pressure cooker. I use it far, far more than my slow cooker.

I've made chicken biryani a few times.  It's been hard to get the spices right but the pressure cooker is more forgiving with the stale spice from the grocery store than regular cooking.  

One time I used breasts instead of thighs and there wasn't enough moisture so the pressure cooker started to burn on the bottom.  When this happens, the instant pot shuts down - which I love!  

r ranson wrote:I've made chicken biryani a few times.  It's been hard to get the spices right but the pressure cooker is more forgiving with the stale spice from the grocery store than regular cooking.  

One time I used breasts instead of thighs and there wasn't enough moisture so the pressure cooker started to burn on the bottom.  When this happens, the instant pot shuts down - which I love!  

How long does it take in a pressure cooker?

It's cooked in three stages.

1. prep - marinade the chicken and fry the onions (which can be done in the pressure cooker)
2. par-cook the chicken - 4 min high. quick release
3. layer the rice and onions on top, 6 min on high. quick release

So about 20 to 30 min total depending on the size of the pressure cooker (bigger takes longer to come up to pressure).  When it burnt, I was in stage 3, but only 2 min into the pressure cooking time.  The rice and chicken were cooked through so we ate it, but the chicken wasn't as tender as when it cooks the full time.  

Today I want to make rice and chicken in my instant pot at the same time.

I decided that I would use the pot in pot method, as I have two stacking pots.  One will have rice, the other chicken.

I haven't got much further than that yet.  The big problem is making sure they have more or less the same cooking time.

some links I've been reading about cooking rice in a pot inside the pressure cooker pot.

https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-pot-in-pot-rice/
https://www.pressurecookingtoday.com/how-to-use-the-pot-in-pot-method-in-your-pressure-cooker-instant-pot/

Since I have an 8-quart electric pot, I need to remember to add a minimum of 2 cups of water to the bottom of the pot - most recipes call for less as they are using smaller pots.  

I recently combined frozen cauliflower, frozen brussel sprouts, diced carrots, and cubed potatoes together and at 4 minutes on high pressure they came out great. Mine states a minimum of 3 cups water, and there was plenty of water left after cooking. But storing the extra servings with the water was a mistake, it was really mushy the following day. Next time I'll be adding chickpeas or lentils (or both) to the mix on the bottom, so they can soak up the water and result in firmer leftovers. Just used a generic combo spice mix I had and it worked well flavor-wise.

r ranson wrote:. . . different ways we can open a pressure cooker . . . how fast we release the pressure. . . . wait a while or put under cold, running water. . . .

I learnt the technique of putting the pressure cooker in cold water when I was young. I use cold water most of the time.

Go on-line to both the InstaPot and Mealthy Web Sites and search for recipes.
They both have tons of those on hand.
And, did you know that you can also make a cheese cake in those? Try it!
But, the very best beans I've ever had came out of my Mealthy - and amazingly went in dry, no pre-soaking.

Bumping the thread.....Thanks, I’ve got a Instapot pressure cooker with me in my van but needed inspiration and information to make bone broth and other recipes. My refrigeration is limited so that’s been discouraging me from making batches of food. One of the challenges of vanlife is food preservation, preparation, and electricity (I’m limited to solar and propane for cooking). Another challenge is too much packaging because I don’t order in bulk. I’m working on it.

Jeremy Baker wrote:I’ve got a Instapot pressure cooker with me in my van but needed inspiration and information to make bone broth and other recipes. My refrigeration is limited so that’s been discouraging me from making batches of food.

If you make bone broth with some fat in it - like chicken bones with skin added - and pour it into single use jar size while it's still hot and make sure each jar has a 1/4-1/2 inch of fat at the top, the fat will seal the broth and it should keep a week or more at a cool temperature. Tall, skinny jars will require less volume of fat vs broth. Adding healthy greens like dandelion and fresh parsley to the Instapot will boost the nutritional value of the bone broth a lot.