She picked out the Power Cooker 8 Quart Digital, but the picture on the link looks nothing like what our cooker looks like.
Tomorrow, like all Southern families everywhere, the menu is cabbage, blackeyed peas, pork loin, and cornbread. This has been our New Years Day menu for years. And, I've cooked a lot of blackeyed peas over the years, in anything from cast-iron pots over a campfire, to stovetop pressure cookers, to ceramic slow cookers. I've done it all, had a lot of success and a few disasters. Such is the nature of cooking.
Belle hadn't tried out her newfangled cooker yet, so this morning she got it out. "I want to cook those peas today. If there's a problem, we'll find it early and won't have a disaster tomorrow."
That's good planning, so we read the instruction manual, washed and drained the peas, and found the ham bone from the Christmas ham. Loaded it all into the pressure cooker, set it and let it do its thing.
Thirty minutes later, it was done. After the pressure bled off, we looked inside.
The peas are tender, the little chunks of ham are falling off the bone, it looks like this thing works as advertised. We'll let them cool, then refrigerate until tomorrow, when we'll re-heat them prior to lunch. I am impressed. A half-hour from three pounds of dried peas to savory, completely cooked peas is quite an eye-opener. I can see that this thing will get a workout in the coming months It's got a lot of functions that we have yet to learn, but I'm happy to try and learn them.
Yep, this thing is going to fit in nicely around here.
As good descendants of Spanish and Latins, Pressure cookers are a MUST, we have 2 old school Presto and they get used every week.
ReplyDeleteI just don't know about them newfangled electric things... Anyway, that is Old School talkin'
I've had my eye on the 10qt version, though Costco and Sam's have had the 8 qt lately. Interested for the pressure cooker and as a light duty pressure canner. Which is supposed to be a great feature.
ReplyDeleteHrmmm... Need to relook at those...
ReplyDeleteMy mother had one many years ago. Now, I don't know how she did it but, you know the pressure relief valve on top? Somehow she managed to pass the entire contents of the cooker through that little hole and painted the kitchen ceiling at the same time. She never used it again.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was just a wee sprog about a hunnert years ago9 my dad bought my mom a pressure cooker cause she'd been hinting that she wanted one pretty bad,when she dug supper, spare ribs and sauerkraut, out of that thing the meat was a grayish brown sludge in the bottom and the kraut had nearly disappeared. Mom was so mad that dad just took us to a little cafe and let us all order what we wanted, Mom still has the pressure cooker, it serves very well for popping corn and has for nearly 65 years now.
ReplyDeleteI used to carry it hiking in the Cascades, I made some really good meals in it over an open fire and a altitudes over 7000 feet it actually cooked stuff that barely got warm in an open kettle. one of my favorites was bean and hamburger soup with onions, celery and bell pepper. That simply wouldn't cook in a kettle, but was wonderful cooked in Mom's "corn popper."
@Timmeehh: Same experience here, well, there, when I was a kid. Used to the sound of that tinkling regulator on top. Don't know why it happened other than the safety plug in the lid blew, but I assume all that stuff on the ceiling was both tasty and tender. We just cleaned it up; nobody to my knowledge had any inclination to taste it.
ReplyDeleteWe got the exact same one. We browned chicken and then made Kung Pao chicken all in that. Today was a pot of black eyed peas also. Like you, I've cooked in cast iron, stove top pressure cookers, slow cookers and this thing really is handy.
ReplyDelete