Pressure cooker/Instant Pot/multicooker
7I have joined the pressure cooker resurgence. I got a 10 in 1 8qt cooker. I didn’t get the instant pot/ninja because I only paid $10, so knockoff brand is fine by me!
I’m really trying to get back into cooking more often. I ended up making pot roast with carrots and potatoes. It came out edible. It was the most ridiculous rushed cooking I did because I just couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t even peel my potatoes. I just peeled the skin off when it was done. The whole process was easy. I just didn’t hear the timer go off so I’m not sure how long it sat in the warm stage before I noticed. The carrots were a little mushy but I’m still pleased with the outcome.
I went back and read the threads from 2016 and 2017. I’m curious to see if people are still using them as often and if they have any new go to recipes.
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I use mine all the time. My mother uses hers once a year when we use both of them to make tamales lol
I belong to a couple of one pot/instapot cooking Facebook pages and have had a few recipes I keep coming back to but the things I use it mostly for is speeding up pot roast and slow cooking recipes, making soups and stews that tastes like they’ve been cooking for hours, and the like. I love that it doesn’t heat up the kitchen and I can have a decent meal in an hour or less.
Frequently but less than before; mostly because work is again encroaching later and later into the evenings.
We don’t use it for rice; the rice cooker does better, but we’ve done potatoes, eggs, really nice chicken paprikash and swiss steak (and southern gravy steaks), beef stew, pot roast, pork roasts… and my wife makes her stocks and bone broth in it; both are speeded up quite a bit though the bone broth still takes quite a while.
We’ve also used it to cook larger quanties of ground beef (4-5 pounds) at once. Do that with beef base or beef stock for the liquid,throw in some garlic and onions, and its great for multiple meal uses for the next week. Easier than browning it and more flavorful.
I use it to make no-soak red beans (for New Orleans red beans and rice) in just a couple of hours instead of all day after an overnight soak.
I also use it to make greens (collard, mustard, turnip) in a half-hour that come out amazing. A ham hock, onion, & garlic gives you a killer pot liquor in no time.
I’m still working on expanding the things I cook in it. I just got the new sous vide model from Costco, so the Anova will finally be retired and passed along.
I have a 3qt mini IP, but haven’t busted it out yet. The plan was to use it for rice or smaller dishes.
I tried starting a french onion soup, but went back to the dutch oven. Too easy just to roast them in the cast iron dutch oven to get them nice and carmelized. The IP just can’t do that.
I’ve not done the famous “butter chicken”, but I’m looking forward to when I do. Pot roast is a no-brainer.
I like it because the heat is concentrated into the food, and doesn’t heat up the whole kitchen like the oven and range do.
The saute function works fine for your starter (mirepoix, sofrito, trinity, etc) and rendering bacon and blooming your spices/flavors.
And dress up your IP!
@mike808 Butter Chicken is amazing! We make it with coconut milk instead of cream or whatever it calls for since we started when a kid had a dairy allergy. We still think it is better this way.
Last week I made about six pounds of chicken fajitas using both thighs and breasts then freeze some. Also made corned beef. That was the first time I cooked anything so long (90 minutes).
I got my wife a 6 qt one for christmas about 2 years ago, and she uses it a couple times a week. This year I got her the 8 qt size because she says the 6 qt one is not big enough to hold a whole chicken.
Any way, the reason i am chiming in here is to recommend another appliance that every one seems to have forgotten about, or just ignores because they never tried one (like every one did with pressure cookers for the last 40 years).
Ever see those table top convection ovens that look like a glass bowl with a fan in the lid? You often see them at yard sales for $10 still in their original box, like someone got it for a present and never bothered trying it.
Those things are AWESOME. I had one for years, and used it often when I had to rush home from work and make dinner for the family. You can roast a chicken in about 45 minutes an it comes out juicy and nicely browned on the outside. Afterwards, you just put some soapy water in it and let it run for a few minutes and it mostly cleans itself. Try one, if you don’t like it you can always put it back into your next yard sale.
These things:
Tabletop convention cooker
Chiming in for the wife - instant pot and airfryer are a must.
One pot pasta, asian stew short ribs, soups, rice when we’re without our trusty rice cooker, baking - and super quick like 1/3 of the time and hassle of stove top or lots of recipes.
Flavors do have drawbacks like when using a crock - done wrong yah you’ll have mush meat but time it right and you’re golden. Not the same as searing veggies, sauteeing continually and frying meat in a pan but when you’re hungry and away all day a one pot meal is your family’s best friend.
Recipes abound everywhere - just be sure to have a spare lid ring handy cause after a while they smell awful, al la garlic, pasta, meat and whatever else you’ve conjured in the pot.
Steam gets dangerous especially if you’ve got lots of liquids when you pop pressure so be aware.
I definitely still use mine for roast beef and for hard boiled eggs. Although the appliance I use every day is my breville espresso machine. It makes me feel like I’m in Italy again… molto bene…
Got one last summer and have made a bunch of stuff in it:
hard-boiled eggs
Taco meat
Beef Stew
Tons of apple sauce (put up about 25 cups worth when apples were cheap at Aldi)
A bunch of Strawberry Jam
Boubon Peach Jam
Bourbon Fig preserves
FROG (fig/raspberry/orange/ginger) Jam
Pasta Sauce
A lot of this years Christmas presents were IP creations.
I have the old kitchenaid multipot from back before you got the all in one stuff with the pressure cooker. I have a stove top pressure cooker too. Use it mostly for chicken or spare ribs
the multicooker i use for roasts, stew, soup etc.
i’ve thought a lot about trading it in for the Ninja one, but this one stirs itself. they are on closeout these days for about 1/2 what I paid, and that’s still over 200 bucks cause well Kitchenaid
@Cerridwyn
Back in the day, Kitchenaid was part of the Hobart company which made commercial floor mixers. They were BEASTS… bullet-proof and unbeatable mixers.Over the years they have changed hands. Now they have some lines with plastic gears… thanks Whirlpool.
@chienfou
yeah
many of their products are still top notch, but financially priced too high for comparison with the competition. If you bake a lot, the mixer is still pretty awesome. And they like red and well I like red.
Some pieces actually had specialty certifications that are no longer kept up. Probably because cost to manufacture went down while prices went up.
I am getting a bit tired of their ‘vintage’ look though.
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot the old style was just sort of a miniaturized version of the commercial floor model. we still have a 20+yr old one we bought from Sam’s that has made countless recipes. Now that the missus is doing Weight Watchers we are thinking seriously about getting a pasta head. Love the PTO attachments!
When I was younger the restaurant were I worked had a Hobart mixer that had a meat grinder head that we used to process pork butts we boned ourselves into sausage that we then put into casings for Italian sausage.
@Cerridwyn Hah! I have paid extra or gone out of my way to find a number of things just because they are red - my kitchen trash can (tall metal automatic-opening) and a Canon printer; my first digital camera years ago; yes, I’m a sucker for color! First smartphone was a teal Samsung; current iPhone is rose gold, Honda Fit is Cosmic Blue. Heck with all those things in black or silver!
We still use our instant pot. Mostly for stews, pot roast, butter chicken, and hard boiled eggs. Oh, and a great unstuffed pepper recipe that is close to real stuffed peppers in taste, but sooooo much easier.