My instant pot is giving me anxiety. (light hearted - kind of)

[OhioOhioOhio]

All of this, 'bung it in' gave me a false sense of security. Everything I cook in it turns out wrong.

Can anyone tell me some fail safe recipes? I'm desperate to be a fan of the ruddy thing.

This cookbook is good...
www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Multi-cooker-Cookbook-Recipes-Instant/dp/1849759731/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=modern+multi+cooker+cookbook&sprefix=modern+mul&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1568807594&sr=8-1
It might help to a few types of food you can cook. I never dared try risotto until I used a recipe from that book, it’s brilliant.
Soup and curry are great done in the instant pot, as are joints of meat/whole chicken.
www.apinchofhealthy.com/chicken-tortilla-soup-in-the-instant-pot/
This is a family favourite, easy and healthy.

What do you mean by "wrong?"

Are you on the Facebook group? Loads of good recipes there.

My favourite is sweet potato and black bean chilli. recipes.instantpot.com/recipe/sweet-potato-and-black-bean-chili/

Like 'dump in mince'.

So I did. With all the bolognaise type ingredients.

It smelt fine but hours later it was a solid cube with burnt sauce ingredients.

Or its all dried up.

Or raw.

Or black flaky bits on the bottom.

Single, working mum. Need it to work.

Hmm, mine is working out well.

Pulled pork? Bung it in with a cup of water, pressure cook for about 30mins, npr. Drain the juice, remove the fat, shred and add bbq sauce and return some of the juice.

Rice? Same volume of water as rice. Pressure cook zero minutes, npr.

It's like a slow cooker in that you need to reduce the amount of liquid you put in recipes (or cook pot in pot if necessary). You also need to leave out thickeners and/or tomato puree until the end or they catch and burn on the bottom. The instant pot is amazing if you use proper recipes for it.

Bolognese, are you using fresh mince? I'd stir it and break it up a bit after adding, or use frozen free flow mince.

Just read your update - I've never ever seen any Bolognese recipe where you wouldn't fry the mince off first. The instant pot is great but it's not magic!!

If I was doing Bolognese, I'd set the pan up on sauté first while I add the ingredients.

Bung in the mince, then the onions, stir. Any other veg and stir. Then the seasonings (not a sauce mix) and a cup of water, stir. Tin of tomatoes- don't stir. Put the lid on and swap to pressure cooker mode, say 20 mins. Stir and thicken with gravy granules before serving.

Don't use sauce mixes, because they are likely to be prethickened which will catch.
Just add herbs, spices etc, and thicken at the end with gravy granules or cornflour paste.

So how do you decide the setting for the pressure?

And can I really leave it at 7am and not be home, and eat it at 5pm?

Mine has been sat in its box since Christmas I'm scared of it!

No advice as I've never used an instant pot, but I love the way that instant pot/slow cooker enthusiasts can never "put" food into the pot, it always has to be "chucked" or "bunged" or "thrown"!

Do this:

Stuff:
High sided frying pan with a lid, non stick
Large saucepan
400g lamb mince
1/2 red onion
1/2 English onion or white onion
Quite a few garlic cloves
150g button mushrooms
1 can cherry tomatoes
1/2 tube tomato puree
Ketchup (some)
Salt (teaspoon)
Brown Sugar (tablespoon)
Bit of olive oil

Dice all veggies, slice the garlic
Heat some oil in a pan and add onions and garlic, soften while stirring over quite a low heat
Add mince, break it up in the pan and keep everything moving, once the mince is all broken up and mostly cooked add the tomatoes.
Stir it through
Add the puree, salt and brown sugar, stir it through
Add the ketchup, stir it through
Leave on low heat while you prepare the pasta, don't use quick cook or fresh pasta.

Add about 1 teaspoon of salt and 250g of spaghetti to the saucepan of boiling water. Let the bit in the water soften slightly and push the rest in, stir it a little too make sure it hasn't attached to bottom of pan. Cook according to instructions

Drain, combine, serve

Get yourself a better recipe book that isn't vague in its terms and always assume you need to stir everything at least a little bit

Oh shit I missed the instant pot part

I don't know what that is

And can I really leave it at 7am and not be home, and eat it at 5pm?

Only if you're using it as a slow cooker. I think the best way to learn to use it properly is to watch videos on YouTube. There are loads and loads of them.

Are you talking about a slow cooker instead of an instant pot? Instant pot cooking is minutes rather than hours?

If it’s an instant pot you’re using then leaving it for hours is going to leave you with a burnt mess. Do you mean slow cooker?

500g pasta
4 cups of water
Mustard
Hot sauce
Spinach (can be frozen)

Pressure cook for 5 minutes and vent until the pin drops. Stir in cheese and a can of evaporated milk.

It makes great macaroni cheese and got me over my instant pot fear. Now I am reasonably confident freestyling on soups but do follow recipes.

You do need to make sure the inner pot is clean on the outside and the seal is in properly. If you sauté first (and I would for mince) you have to deglaze thoroughly or it will burn. And tomato is tricky - occasionally it gives me a burn message so I try to put it on top of other ingredients. Jarred sauces aren’t worth bothering with as the thickeners seem to cause burning too.

But honestly it is fairly straightforward and the food is really good. Maybe try YouTube or the UK official Facebook site which I have heard is good. I don’t have FB but my sister swears by it as a good source of help and recipes that work.

Re pressure- just do everything on high.

Re leaving it- depends. I've got a soup in at the moment. I put a couple of cups of water, diced potato, onion, sweet corn, shredded chicken and garlic in first thing.
set delay to five hours.
Set pressure cook for 5 mins (everything except diced potato is cooked).
Pressed the keep warm function.

I'd guess it will start cooking around 2pm, it will take about 30mins to get up to temp and then cook, so 2.30. Then it will sit on warm until I serve it- I'll tweak it then, add cream or yogurt, Black pepper, maybe thicken it.

I thought that 'instant pot' was a reference to a 'substance'!

An instant pot/pressure cooker is very different to a slow cooker! What are we all actually talking about??

Instant pot has a slow cooker function. I haven't used it, though!

When the pot has finished pressure cooking, it will switch to Keep Warm for up to 10 hours; so it'll still be hot when you want to eat.

Are you using it as a slow cooker or a pressure cooker? Pressure cooking can take 20 minutes. Slow coking 6+ hours.

I cooked a gammon in the slow cooker yesterday and it was lovely, and some lamb shanks last weekend.