Pressure cooker - do you have one?

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Do i need one of these as desperately as my mother says i do?

I have to say i do have my eye on an electric one. I was brought up on pressure cooker stews and soups, and can still hear that hissing rocker doing its thing.

Apparently in winter its a must have. I have a slow cooker which rarely use as i don't like the way it dries the meat out on top, but the thing I use the most is my Wonder Box, which is just really a box with polystyrene inners in, you bring your pot to the boil, then stick it in the box to slowly cook for the rest of the day..

Her point is that i am short of time and this is the answer to cut down cooking time. I am short of time, i agree what with working, dc attending every flipping extra mural possible, dh working away a lot....

What am i going to make in my pressure cooker than I cant do in my Wonder Box, i wonder

I have a pressure cooker and use it on the days I haven't planned ahead enough to use the slow cooker. I also use it for potatoes, rice and dried beans and pulses.

I love the sound of your wonder box! I think I might need one.

They scare me too much. I worry about them exploding.

I've had one since I left home 20+ years ago, I tend to just use it for soup, but we go through a lot! Wouldn't be without it. (And the bolognaise for tea tonight is in the slow cooker just now)

My pressure cooker gave up the ghost just yesterday, and I'm already feeling the pain. I use it several times a week.

Main things I use it for: chicken stock and other soup stock -doing it in the pressure cooker gives really clear stock with no skimming required. As well as: Indian rice pudding (kheer, which takes about 15 minutes in all, and no stirring), risotto (which cooks in 8 minutes in the pressure cooker with no stirring required, except for frying onion at the very start. Now I will not cook risotto any other way). Also: beans and lentils, and Indian meat dishes (lamb is cooked to complete softness in 15 minutes under pressure, chicken needs only about 7-8 minutes under pressure). I cook Indian food most meals, as used to live there and DH is Indian. It was seeing everyone in India use them for pretty much all meals that really got me into using them.

Growing up, my mum (not in India) had a huge one that was used for soups, stews and steamed puddings. But she didn't use it all that often, as she was scared of it.
However, it was so big that she also used it, not under pressure, as her largest pan for making jam. And actually it was very good for that too, as it had such a thick bottom that nothing burnt onto the bottom of the pan.

On safety: everyone I knew in India used them all the time, and I've been using them constantly for years, and never had a problem with safety. I guess in theory they could explode (??), but both the low-tech, jiggling top type as used in India, and the higher-tech fancy ones like I have been using here ALL have an inbuilt gasket thingy which is specifically incorporated to give way and let out excess pressure if for some reason (probably poor cleaning from a previous meal) the pressure cannot came out in the way it is meant to.
You CAN have hot liquid coming out the steam vent if cooking very frothy foods, such as lentils, and have overfilled. But put on an oven glove, and lift the pan off the heat, and the pressure will go down again quick smart.

My pressure cooker would be one of the things I would rescue from my burning house! Makes ace tomato pasta sauces, and I use it all the time for pulses. You can do gammon very quickly as well. Much better than slow cookers, which make all food taste institutionalised IMO.
Modern ones are very safe - I have a Kuhn Rikon one from Lakeland.

I've had a pressure cooker for as long as I can remember, however all I use it for now is Christmas puddings and marmalade. I did used to use it for loads of meals, I don't really know why I stopped.

Thanks all. So I am just going to have to go and get one, I just cannot after reading all these posts.

I did promise myself that I would stop buying gadgets, as I am a complete gadget girl, but if you all say that I should get one, and so does my mother, well, really who am I to argue

says she who has just ordered another attachment for her Kenwood