Do you Instant Pot?

[therealstegblob]

Que?

/10chars

Look through the posts. Two different people made harmless jokes about relating the word “instant pot” to weed and wow potions and Thwart gave them infractions for “trolling”. Like that’s bad even by MMOChampion mod standards.

[jellmoo]

I do, but I've really only scratched the surface of the thing and basically use it only for pressure cooking and slow cooking.

Trying to get into it more, but I find a lot of the information out there a little overwhelming. Starting slow with stews and chili, and will see where it takes me.

[Lane]

Dump-and-go is just boiling/simmering though. Nobody likes raw boiled onion. Taking 3 minutes to sautee your aromatics makes a world of difference in flavor for such a short investment of your time.

I've always found it hard to understand people that eat-to-live though. When my brother in law went vegan I gave him some tips for cooking shoujin ryouri style vegan Japanese food that has maybe 5 minutes of prep and no more than 30 minutes of wait time, and he still just gets by on french fries and PB&J, or just opening a can of beans and eating out of that.

I'm veering a little off-topic, but I like to look at pressure cooking as a tool to get quality food out of things that take 3+ hours in a quarter to a third of the time, rather than a machine to just throw everything in and stop caring about what I'm cooking. The thought of eating food that's blander than it has to be is a little depressing honestly.

I eat plant-based for health, but my aversion to cooking has caused me make poor dietary choices at times so the simpler I can keep it the better. One pot meals with as little prep as possible work best for me. I get better flavor out of the IP using granulated garlic and onion anyway, something about the pressure cooking method seems to require more spice.

[Gestopft]

My wife got me an Instant Pot last Christmas, or maybe for my birthday, and I LOVE it. I love being able to sauté before slow/pressure cooking something, the programmability, etc, it's been great having it in my kitchen.

So do any of you (or your wives/girlfriends/moms/etc) use an Instant Pot?

One thing to be aware of with the Instant Pot is that its slow cook settings are (probably) different than your slow cooker. Specifically, they are lower, so you have to bump it up more, and in the case of crock pot recipes that call for the highest setting, know that it's going to take longer. Luckily, if something isn't done yet when you need it to be, you can always pressure cook it the rest of the way

[Fencers]

Hell yes. I used stovetop pressure cookers for years. They were useful but kind of a pain to deal with at times.

The electric pressure cookers are terrifically convenient. I make at least 3 meals in my instant pot a week.

[Trassk]

Indeed I do!

Instant pot noodles are great

[Muajin76]

I've been a big user of crockpots over the years. As a kid my mom would put stuff in the crockpot for dinner when she got home from work in the morning for us to have for dinner after she woke up. As an adult I found the simplicity of putting stuff in a crockpot for dinner and just letting it do its thing while I went about the rest of my day. When the Instant Pot hit I was curious about using one but couldn't talk myself into spending $100-150 to get one. After my crockpot committed suicide a few weeks ago (it slid off the flat counter and onto the tile floor when there's no real reason it should have slid off lol) I was torn between replacing the crockpot or getting an Instant Pot. I had talked myself in earlier this year into getting an Instant Pot on Black Friday because I knew there would be deals for one all over the place. Well this last weekend I was at a public auction and they had almost 20 Instant Pots up for bid and I ended up scoring an 8 quart for only $35. Since then I have used it twice and have fallen in love with how much better it is than a crockpot.

Tonight I'm making this mock Italian Hero pasta for dinner. It uses pancetta (or thick cut prosciutto or bacon if you can't find pancetta), sliced onions, dry salami, pepperoni, 8oz of Italian dressing, 1/2 cup heavy cream, a jar of roasted red peppers, hearty pasta, and finally Boursin. I decided to add a small can of sliced olives, sliced mushrooms, and a jar of marinated artichoke hearts since I couldn't find the roasted red peppers. It is cooking right now but it smells wonderful. Can't wait to try it. So do any of you (or your wives/girlfriends/moms/etc) use an Instant Pot? What are some of your favorite recipes?

mental note. instantly potting while raiding doesn't count.