Instant Pot - yay or nay?

[NotMyWay]

My Facebook feed is filled with videos of delicious meals being made in an Instant Pot in 10 seconds flat. Is this an amazing kitchen must have or a complete waste of time?

Yay. I got mine at xmas and love it. Use it several times a week. It's much easier to use than I thought.

@womanity

Also, they’re really ugly. Like really.

Mine is pretty!

Pretty and in a cupboard!

It’d feel less pretty if you needed to have it permanently on your kitchen island! 😀

I bought one when they very first came out. We recently upgrade to the Newer model so I could use the saute function at three different levels.

We use it all the time. DH made a chicken stock last night as he is on a mission to make the best ever.

I use it to make a takeoff of British baked means. Worked great.

I have never had the burn message. I don't know why.

[quote EnterFunnyNameHere]@CausingChaos2 & other ninja users - how is the slow cooker function? "Low" on the instant pot doesn't seem to actually cook anything it's so low so it's hard to use normal slow cooker recipes![/quote]
I leave the IP on normal for any slow cooking and it's absolutely fine, lovely gentle bubbling, I have never had any bother with the SC function, but I know some do. Mine is the 6l Duo 7in1

I don't know if it because I always saute and brown before hand, I don't chuck and go for any slow cooked stuff, that's why so many things have that awful damp veg waft and taste imo!

Having said that, most casseroley/stew type things I do under pressure and then just leave them on the keep warm function, and that works very well.

I have never had the burn message. I don't know why.

I've had it show up twice, the first time took me completely by surprise and was quite disconcerting. I could see it had switched off and there was an error message, but it took me a while to realise what the problem was.

The first time was when I made a pot of chilli that started with sautéing a lot of vegetables and spices. Normally after sautéing I add a glug of wine and stir the bottom of the pot with spoon, to lift any bits that have stuck during the sautéing process, but that time I forgot and a few minutes into the start of pressure cooking the machine gave some distressed beeps and a message saying BURN. I let the pressure go down, opened the lid, poured the contents into the second pot and put that in to cook while the pot with burnt on bits soaked in the sink.

The second time that I got the burnt error message was when I was making plaki - those Greek gigantes beans in tomato and garlic sauce. I had added two cans of chopped tomatoes to the soaked beans, but had very been stingy with the stock, allowing the tomatoes to overheat and trigger the burn error. That time I just needed to add a can of water, stir it in and restart the 50 minutes pressure cooking time.

I have all my grains, rices, pastas in storage containers labelled with ratios and IP cook times

That's a stroke of genius Womanity, I stick a bit of masking tape with the cook times of pasta after transferring them to storage containers, but never thought to add the IP cooking ratios & times to the rice and grains. I always end up searching for the recipe folder in my laptop, then finding the pressure cooker folder, opening the rice & grains folder and finally the saved .pdf of the web page to check the details of the cooking instructions. So much smarter to do it once and save the details in plain sight, on top of the different rice and grain containers.

I use mine all the time - I have a small kitchen and I make room for it on the counter because it does all the jobs. I bought it for the ability to cook dried beans without remembering to soak them in advance (vegan game changer!) but I actually use the rice and multigrain functions just as much (no more hours simmering broth mix!), plus slow cook and steam...
I keep meaning to try the yoghurt setting for bread as I don't have an airing cupboard. Glad to hear others have had success with it.

I keep mine on a pizza stone on the back ring on my hob. As long as I make sure it’s as far back as it can go, it’s safe (we did have a ‘melting incident’ with the old one as DS...)

@Stealhsquirrelnutkin you could always print your PDF document and Blutak it to the inside of the cupboard door where you keep your rice and grains.

you could always print your PDF document and Blutak it to the inside of the cupboard door where you keep your rice and grains.

Thanks Katrinawaves, that's a good idea. I used to have all kinds of handy notes stuck to the inside of my old kitchen cupboard drawers, the ingredients for pancakes, and traybake sponge cakes, right at eye level on the cupboard with the baking supplies. Then I got so doddery that I couldn't access things at the far back of the bottom and top shelves, so 15 years ago I had all the kitchen cupboards replaced with tall pull-out larders. The kind of cupboards where the top, bottom and middle shelves are permanently attached to the back of the cupboard door, and those 3 shelves get pulled out as the door is pulled forward. The remaining 2 shelves can also be pulled out as required. Giving a line of sight and easy access to every part of every shelf, but no handy inside cupboard door that swings out and makes a handy spot for posting recipes.

So it's cryptic notes in sharpie on strips of masking tape stuck to the top of the individual containers for me. Today I've done the basmati, brown basmati, carnaroli, jasmine, wild rice, pudding rice, millet, and quinoa, adding a second strip of masking tape next to the one that was already there to tell me what was in each container, and the best before date from the original packaging. I'm tempted to invest in one of those label maker gadgets, but fear I'd get addicted and end up going through the entire house labelling all the cupboards and drawers. Like my SiL who irons all the families undies and socks, because "otherwise the drawers look untidy". It's a slippery slope.

I bought one of those label makers - they’re not as addictive as you think because they’re so damn slow. 😀

I admire today’s productivity - I only realised recently I should have included best by dates too.

Someone who owned our house or did work on it has handily labelled various bits and pieces, including the boiler. Just in case anyone thinks it's the oven or a very hot metal cupboard!

Someone who owned our house or did work on it has handily labelled various bits and pieces, including the boiler. Just in case anyone thinks it's the oven or a very hot metal cupboard!

See! I knew it! You start out very sensibly labelling a few perfectly reasonable items, and then you get a taste for it, you lie awake at night thinking about things that would benefit from being labelled, and before you know it things have got out of hand and you've got labels on the door handles, windows and boiler! A slippery slope.

Maybe they were learning English. Growing up, things in my house were often labelled in German because Mum. 😀

Because Mum what?

No - they weren't learning English, they just went mad with a label printer.

I sometimes write on plugs with a Sharpie what they are for after DP unplugged the freezer in the cellar to charge his drill. No additional equipment or supplies required!

I bought one because of MN. I undid the top of the box. That's as far as I got. Its literally never been taken out and instead has sat in a cupboard for 18 brand new.

I wouldn't have a stovetop pressure cooker because they scare me. I love my IP though. Use it several times a week.

It’s the same basic principle I think though isn’t it? I use mine a lot - if you just remember the water ratio, and the fact that the texture can end up very soft. My lovely potato and egg curry was very soft last week but it did taste really good.

I find it handy to keep things warm - so good if I don’t know exactly when we are eating or if someone is going to be late for a meal.

@UnaOfStormhold

I have been searching for a chili recipe that you can make with dried beans (do you just throw everything in at once?). Please can you share or link yours?

I don’t use mine as often as I’d like - I’d love to be able to throw something with beans or pulses in of a morning and have a tasty soup by lunchtime, with extras I can freeze for another day. My DH does most of the cooking nowadays and he says the IP ruins the texture of dried beans. Any suggestions for converting him are much appreciated!

Yes, it's an electric pressure cooker with some additional settings and several safety features.

@mommybunny I'm afraid I don't really use a recipe. The last one I made was inspired by this burnt aubergine chilli but I skipped the lentils, used a mix of dried beans and estimated how much water to add - it varies so much depending on what different veg you put in and how much liquid they release (generally loads from aubergine!).

I hate mine and have gone back to my pressure cooker.