About a week or so ago Betty, (my 82 year old beer drinking, Orange Is The New Black watching mother) called me to ruminate about gum or cats or ISIS or something - I can't really remember. In the same conversation she told me she needed to borrow my Instant Pot. There was a recipe in the newspaper she wanted to try but it required an Instant Pot. The Instant Pot, if you don't know, is the new "miracle " small appliance that has taken the blogging world by storm. I have no idea if it's taken the world of regular home cooks by storm or not, but according to my nephew who works at Canada Post a plethora of them are being shipped to homes across Canada on a daily basis.
The Instant Pot, which looks like a large slow cooker, used to be a 6 in 1 machine, but the new and improved version is a 7 in 1 machine.
MY REVIEW OF THE INSTANT POT.
WHAT 7 GADGETS DOES THE INSTANT POT REPLACE?
- SLOW COOKER
- PRESSURE COOKER
- RICE COOKER
- STEAMER
- YOGURT MAKER
- SAUTE PAN/OVEN
- WARMING POT
This one machine is capable of doing all of these things. Unfortunately for The Instant Pot, I'm capable of doing all of these things as well, usually without the aid of a special machine. As you may have guessed, this review isn't going to bode well for the Instant Pot.
By the way, it's the yogurt maker that they added to the latest edition of the Instant Pot that turned it from a 6 in 1 to a 7 in 1 machine. And it's a good thing they did because without the addition of that, my review of this thing would have gone from underwhelmed to abysmally underwhelmed. And guess what? They now make a 9 in 1 machine!
I'm Karen. And I'm the only blogger to hate The Instant Pot. Or so I thought but in truth ...
Nope. No, I was not the only person to hate The Instant Pot. I am joined by a long line of people who didn't like the Instant Pot but who aren't quite as vocal about their distain for this thing as the people who are obsessed with it. The obsessed people who will herein be referred to as The Cult of Instant Pot Lovers Who Maybe Don't Actually Love Cooking so Therefore Love That The Instant Pot Allows You to Lock Your Dinner Up And Out Of Sight Like a Kidnapped Baby.
Kaitlin from TheKitchn didn't like it.
Lisa from 100DaysofRealfood didn't like it.
And, and ... well I'm sure I could find more detractors out there if I could just figure out how to make it into the small kitchen appliance section of the dark web.
The Cult of the Instant Pot is the group of people who are willing to do or say anything to prove that this very useable, yet kind of unremarkable gadget is going to change your life. After owning the 7 in 1 Instant Pot for a few months my life has not changed any more than it changed after getting a teeth cleaning and WAY less than it changed after buying a Soda Stream.
But I like cooking. I like the process of cooking. I like stirring, and tasting and adding salt. You do not do these things with an Instant Pot. You put the food in, close it up and hope for the best. Which is my biggest beef with it. Cooking for me is something to be enjoyed and experienced and food is to be nurtured and tasted throughout the cooking process. There is none of that with an Instant Pot.
Imagine you're an artist and you have a blank canvas and all your oil paints and brushes in front of you. You take your time building the perfect painting, adding things and blending them and taking your time lovingly creating it. That's cooking.
Now imagine you whip off a kind of shitty paint by number in 13 minutes. That's cooking with an Instant Pot.
I know The Cult is currently looking for ways to poison me with some sort of Instant Pot concoction (that has gooey, rubbery chicken skin in it) but if that's the case I know I have at least 2 hours because even though the Instant Pot Cult claims they can make "Bone Broth" soup in 20 minutes, what they don't mention is you can't.
Why not? Because of reason #1 I didn't like the Instant Pot.
WHY I DIDN'T LIKE THE INSTANT POT
- The Instant Pot isn't as fast as its cooking time. Even though it works great and really did create the most delicious chili I've ever made in my life, the Instant Pot takes a really long time to come up to pressure before you can start cooking in it. At least 20 minutes. So you spend all your time prepping, doing whatever you need to do to make soup or chili (just like you would if you were doing it on the stove) and then you have to sit and wait for 20 minutes while it comes up to pressure. Once it does you really do have a reduced cooking time for a lot of things. My chili cooked in the Instant Pot in 10 minutes. You heard me. I pressure cooked it for TEN minutes. Normally I'd simmer that sucker for 3 hours. But then after it's insanely quick cooking time you need to let it depressurize. Another 20 minutes in most cases. For chili or other slow simmering dishes the Instant Pot excels. It really and truly does. The pressure cooking blends and melds all the flavours right into the meat (just like any pressure cooker would). But if that's all you want to do with the Instant Pot you'd be better off getting a better, stronger pressure cooker that comes up to pressure faster.
- The Instant Pot doesn't allow you to taste your food as you go. Or even check on it. Want to cook some chicken or duck or other meat that might dry out and get rubbery if it's overdone? You throw it in The Instant Pot and hope for the best. Ditto for seasoning which I always do at the beginning, middle and end of making almost any recipe. The good news is, because the Instant Pot does such a good job of bringing out the flavours of most ingredients, underseasoned food usually isn't an issue.
- The saute function isn't hot enough. I guess hot enough isn't maybe the right choice of words. The pot gets hot enough for sauteing but the second you add any food to it, the Instant Pot isn't strong enough to keep it hot so you have to wait for it to heat back up again before anything can brown. So it takes 3X as long to saute or brown meat in an Instant Pot as it would in a pan on the stove.
- You can't do big batches. I was really excited about making broth in The Instant Pot because everyone who has done so said it's fast and it's great. Sign me up. Then I started thinking ... that's not a lot of broth. When I do chicken or beef broth/stock I do a LOT of it, and then I can it all. I do this maybe 3 times a year. The Instant Pot comes in 3 sizes: 5, 6 or 8 quarts. By the time I got my ingredients into the Instant Pot and accounting for the fact that you can't fill it up completely because it's a pressure cooker, that wasn't going to leave me with very many quarts of broth. So in the end I didn't even try making broth in it.
- There's no temperature gauge. I mentioned the yogurt maker was the saving grace of this thing and as someone who makes homemade yogurt on a regular basis it really is a feature I liked. BUT ... there is not temperature gauge and with yogurt (as with a lot of other things) you need to know what temperature your food is at. To test the yogurt to make sure it's at 180 degrees you need to use a manual thermometer. The first time I made yogurt it didn't turn out at all. The second and third times it turned out perfectly. I attribute this to the fact that the later times I checked the temperature with a thermometer.
- Most things I did with it I could do better and easier without The Instant Pot. The Oatmeal I made with the Instant Pot was fine but using my method for Overnight Oatmeal is easier and faster. Plus there's something in me that thinks an old fashioned dish is better when cooked the old fashioned way. If I'm making a dinner that includes rice it's easier to just put some rice and water in a pot on the stove than to drag out the Instant Pot. If I'm cooking a whole chicken the only reason I'm doing that is so I can either stuff it or get a nice crispy skin. Neither of which is possible with the Instant Pot.
Over the course of my review I made Cherry Cheesecake, Yogurt, Oatmeal, Chili, Chicken and rice, Hard Boiled eggs and a bunch of other things in my Instant Pot. Some turned out great, some turned out terrible. Some cooked quicker than normal and some took longer to cook than my regular way of cooking them.
Believe it or not I do have some good things to say about the Instant Pot. Really I do. Although I still overwhelmingly hate it for my own cooking needs for the most part, I would say ...
WHY I LIKED THE INSTANT POT
- It's easy to clean. If you don't consider you can't get the stink out of the rubber gasket no matter what you do. I know this is going to get the other two Instant Pot haters riled up but I really didn't find cleaning this thing to be difficult at all. It's stainless steel which means it cleans really easily with just a sponge. The only issue is the rubber gasket which takes on the scent of each and every thing you cook in your Instant Pot. Mine currently smells like ground beef cheesecake. I haven't noticed that the smell of the gasket translates into flavour mingling in the dishes. The gasket itself just doesn't smell good and HOLDS the smells. True Instant Pot enthusiasts order extra gaskets online so they have one for sweet and one for savoury cooking.
- YOGURT! I know how to make yogurt with my eyes closed, my hands tied behind my back and a gag ball in my mouth. This is the method I have used for years and it's served me well, but the Instant Pot really does make it easier. And as long as you check your temperatures the results are perfect.
- Flavour enhancing qualities. Stews, chilis and other meat or bean based dishes will taste better because of the pressure cooking. Pressure cooking not only cooks meals faster because it raises the temperature inside the pot, but because it pulls liquid into the meats and beans making them softer and full of whatever flavour your sauce/liquid has. It took me years to perfect this chili recipe of mine and with God and all the Instant Pot nerds as witness, I will never cook it on the stove again. Instant Pot all the way.
So what about that newspaper recipe my mom wanted to borrow my Instant Pot for? After explaining the Syrian conflict in a nutshell to her and asking her if she had any white thread, I asked her to read me the recipe over the phone. Turns out the recipe said you needed an Instant Pot but ... you didn't. Not even a little bit. In fact, they were just using it to cook the chicken for a stir fry which would be 10 gazillion times faster to just cook in a pan.
And therein lies my true distain for The Instant Pot and it's gurgling cult of followers. They want you to think you can and should cook EVERYTHING in the Instant Pot. Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should.
I'll fully admit that I kind of had my back up about this whole Instant Pot craze right from the beginning but I truly kept an open mind throughout my review.
I do not recommend the Instant Pot to anyone who enjoys the art of cooking.
I don't even recommend it to people who want to be able to make cooking easier. It doesn't really do that.
It's not like The Instant Pot chops and measures out your ingredients for you. If you're looking for something to make cooking easier, I'd recommend Blue Apron or another food delivery service that pre-portions meals and ingredients and delivers them to your door before I recommended an Instant Pot. Yes, I've worked with Blue Apron before on posts and no they aren't paying me to mention them in this post. It just truly makes more sense to me.
But ... I like cooking. I like stirring and tasting and seasoning. I like the smell of something simmering on the stove all day long. I like the take my time with the painting.
If you don't by all means ... buy an Instant Pot this instant.
This post was paid for by Instant Pot.
Just kidding.
anne
I think the Instant Pot is a great addition so much that I take it camping with me. It had a huge learning curve though. I love to cook but there are so many times I'd rather be painting than stirring over a pot. I love that I can walk away and let it do the cooking. I had the same problems with the saute feature until I figured out there were setting on that as well I beep it up to high and have no problem. I also do a lot of instant release which isn't a scary thing with this pot. So I don't really wait much time for it to depressurize. So the way I do thing it is much quicker. I agree the flavor infuses more from soups and stews in the Instant Pot. I agree that you can ruin some things by wrong temps and cooking times but again that is the learning curve with this appliance. I seem to remember my Mom saying the same kind of things when microwave ovens came out.
FACM
I don't even use a microwave to cook anything. Only to reheat something or heat a frozen food that I can't reheat on the stove. Or to sanitize my sponges.
Jo
Thanks for this! I was nearly swayed by all the hype but your insight into what you (and I) Like about cooking - the tasting and adjusting and fiddling til it's right - as well as the crucial stock making point about making a lot when in fact I do make it, have helped me realize that my gigantic slow cooker does not need a neighbor.
Now I'm hoping you will take this in good spirit, because I fear your mockery even though it might be deserved... you see, the thing is, inasmuch as you have helped me with many many tasks and how to's and bracing 'get her done's', I would like to offer help in one small, very insignificant way, and only because the word shows up twice. If you disdain my effort that's fair, but just so as you know, I too turn off spell check cause I like to make up words and add a lot of slang when I write to people. Sorta. Kinda. youbetcha. That sort of thing that ends up with red squiggly lines all over my text. Kinda Hate spellcheck. Just sayin'.
Karen
Um, I have no idea what you're talking about Jo. You're gonna have to cut to the chase and be blunt ... :) ~ karen!
Jo
sorry Karen. I was being too cagey. It's the word disdain. Spelled with two d's. Thththththat's all. No biggy. (my son's would give me a Big eyeroll right about now).
Karen
Here's what's funny ... I thought it had to do with the word neighbour since you spelled it well .. incorrectly, lol. For a Canadian anyway. :) ~ karen!
Lynda
Sons.
Melissa
I received one as a gift, and have tried a couple things that work. First, unlike slow cooking, meats come out juicy. I've slow-cooked pork shoulder and even though it's sitting in liquid, why is it dry?? Not so in the instant pot. So (relatively) quick pork for carnitas works. Second, there was a meatball and pasta recipe I did that was tasty, but more importantly, my picky kid loved it. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
I will agree with the small size (ooh, chicken broth, but you end up with ... one quart?? What's the bother?) Also, I did the creme brulee (really, custard that you later brulee) and sure, it worked, but I couldn't do all the little cups at once, so had to take turns.
Since it was a gift, I'm keeping it and pulling it out once in a while, probably more often in winter. But I'm not Thrilled to Death, nor am I cooking everything in there.
Kathryn
I got one at Christmas time because I moved into a house with a tiny kitchen, so I got rid of the slow cooker and pressure cooker and a bunch of the pots and pans that I used to have room for, and it does all of the things I need it to do. I threw a sweet potato and a frozen pork chop in it the other day and had a great dinner in very short time, without turning on the oven for a single sweet potato.
It didn't change my life, but it is a handy thing to have in the kitchen. Likewise, the soda stream means we're not storing bottles of fizzy water in the same tiny kitchen.
Stephbo
My hairdresser lives in a tiny loft condo, and that's exactly why she has and loves her IP.
Cary
IP lover here! I love the art of cooking too! I think the love of the instant pot has to do with lifestyles. For instance, last night I was babysitting my grandkids and we decided we wanted to watch The Karate Kid instead of our previous plans of playing outside while grilling a whole chicken. So I turned the IP on "sauté more" to preheat (a very important step) while I trimmed, trussed and seasoned the chicken, browned the breast side for 10 minutes in a bit of oil, and the other three sides about two minutes each. I removed the chicken, added a cup of brown rice, stirred til translucent, then added 1 1/2 cups of the bone broth I had previously made in the IP. (I added more stock for the rice than usually called for because it was going to be in the IP a little longer in order to cook the chicken.) I plopped the chicken back on top, sealed her up and manual hi pressured for 25 minutes. I let it natural pressure release for 5 minutes, took out the chicken and threw it in the preheated oven on convection roast at 425° to brown and finish cooking while I threw some fresh broccoli in the pot with the rice and set to manual for 0 minutes. Everything was done at the same time. The chicken was a golden brown, very moist, and cooked perfectly, as I had under-cooked it in the IP so as not to over cook the rice. The rice and broccoli were amazing and I only had to pause the movie once! :) It took a little over an hour, the same amount of time it would've taken me to grill a spatchcocked chicken. Had I decided to roast the chicken, which I love to do, it would've taken much longer. It's been fun playing with it and figuring out my own way of doing things, using other folks' recipes as a guide. It makes the best rice, white or brown. Killer risotto. No stirring! (I have my own recipe for that as well, as the ones I read were not tasty enough for me.) I make coconut "yogurt", no need to bring it up to 180° so the temp thing isn't a factor for me. Par cooking ribs in the IP makes them so juicy! And peeling my girls' fresh eggs is a dream! ❤️
Karen
But ... But ... but you could have done all of that in your oven in the same amount of time, couldn't you have? Without so much tossing about. No? A small chicken only takes an hour to roast, broccoli on a pan in the same oven to roast at the same time, rice on the stove in a regular pot, 20 min. ~ karen!
Gayle Choojitarom
I live in south Louisiana where temps run above 80*F 9-10 months per year. Just the thought of boiling 2 pots of water while running the oven makes me perspire. Like any other tool, it's not for everything. A great hammer doesn't make everything in the house a nail. In my family, between my New Orleans upbringing and my husband's Asian background, we cook lots of rice, beans, gumbos, stews, Creoles, etouffées, stocks for pho, etc. It does these items, plus several more, very well, and does them without heating up my entire house.
Also, comparing cooking to a painting isn't quite the same, is it? An artist can take weeks, years even, to complete a work of art. Try that with dinner.
SandyToes
What Gayle said. In Tampa we have similar weather, and it's just not practical to cook stovetop or oven braises, long-simmering chili, etc... for most of the year. Pressure cooking means I don't have to wait for cold weather to enjoy these things.
Cary
I was feeding 4 people, my chicken was almost 6 pounds. (I use the low and slow method of roasting where you start it off at 500° for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 275° for hours.) But I suppose I could have roasted it at 350° in about an hour and a half, but roasted broccoli takes about 20 minutes. Pause the movie to throw the broccoli in. Brown rice takes 45 minutes. Pause the movie to boil the stock. Pause the movie to add the rice. 🤣 See!? 😆😘😆
Al
Single guy here. Instant Pot is my saving grace. All I know is that I can throw some meat, veggies and a can of whatever in there, press a button and when it beeps I have food. Blue Apron is terrible for single guys. Way too much food and way too much mess.
Also, instant pot travels. Blue Apron does not. Instant Pot reheats leftovers better than a microwave too.
Best thing in my whole kitchen.
Catherine
What size InstaPot do you recommend for a single?
I hate stirring and cleaning so actually the Instant Pot is appealing...
Karen
Catherine, Get the 6 quart. Anything smaller will be kind of useless. ~ karen!
Al
If I ever filled my 5qt instant pot, I know I have made way too much food. I don't want 3 days worth of leftovers!
Al
I have the small one. People don't understand the single, light eater lifestyle. The small, 5qt is plenty big for me.
Annette
The Instapot . . . coming soon to a yard sale near you.
Kari In Dallas
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Air Fryer...have a friend who loves it, but am ambivalent at this point. Seems like another gadget that takes up space I could use for my collection of cast iron skillets,
Karen
Hi Kari. Someone just emailed me last week about an air fryer. I'll tell you what I told her. I’ve looked into them for the past few years and ultimately decided not to buy one. I don’t eat fried foods all that much and when I do fry foods in a deep fryer, I want them to be fried! Also air fryers take a lot longer than a deep fryer (45 minutes for french fries I believe) and part of what gives these fried foods their appeal is the taste of the actual fat, not just the fact that the food gets crispy.
If you don’t eat french fries every night or even every week I’d pass on the air fryer if I were you. They’re loud, expensive, take a long time to cook and are a large appliance to have to store for something you’ll probably only use once a month or so. :) (for me anyway) ~ karen!
FACM
I just bake my fries if I want fries that are not as oily.
Amanda
Thank you so much for testing the instant pot. I'm so glad i don't "need" one. My suspicions about this thing have been confirmed! Especially the time factor. I love to cook, too, so, yeah, this thing is...just not for me. I still don't understand the whole hard boiled egg thing. It's so easy to make perfectly hard boil eggs in a pot on the stove.
Amanda
Thank you so much for testing the instant pot. I'm so glad i don't "need" one. My suspicions about this thing have been confirmed! Especially the time factor. I love to cook, too, so, yeah, this thing...just not for me. I still don't understand the whole hard boiled egg thing. It's so easy to make perfectly hard boil eggs in a pot on the stove.
Cary
it is virtually impossible to peel fresh eggs. I have chickens and I wouldn't even attempt to boil their eggs because I wouldn't be able to get the peel off! But with my instant pot they peel like a dream! It was worth the 99 bucks I spent on it just so that I could now make hard boiled eggs and deviled eggs and egg salad and soft boiled eggs where the peels literally slip off! 🐣
Valerie
When Karen's Instant Pot article on cooking hard boiled eggs first appeared I remember adding a comment about this. No matter what the age of the eggs for easy peeling boil eggs for 8-10 minutes and run under cold water from the tap, letting it run for about a minute. Let the eggs sit in the cold water for 15 minutes and the shell will peel off easily. There is no need to add baking soda to the water or anything else. The cold water pouring on the eggs at the end of the boiling time causes the white to shrink away from the shell.
Cary
that's the same method I use for store-bought eggs. unfortunately I have not had success with that method using my girls' eggs :(
Anne Scharff
I too have chickens. Drop the fresh eggs after boiling into ice water. They will peel perfectly.
Birdy
Late responding...but, if you have a steamer basket, you can fill your pot with water just to the bottom of the steamer basket, place eggs in basket, bring to a boil, cover, steam for 20 minutes, remove from heat, run under cold water to stop cooking and peel. The shells will come off easily. No IP needed.
Nancy Blue Moon
So like most of these amazing cooking gadgets they come out with..in a couple of years you will be able to get one at a yard sale for $2 bucks!
Nancy W
I got my bread machine at a yard sale for 3 bucks!
Connie
Yes, on that note, we will be seeing them sooner than later from all the brides that received this as a wedding present. The Instant Pot was recommend to me by the Life Style group - Always Hungry, and me thinks it was a ploy for that company to get a kickback.
Rachel
Great review and hilarious post, as always! For someone who loves to cook and be a part of each step, your review and feelings about the appliance makes a lot of sense.
I don't love cooking. But I do it. A lot. Every day. I have a hungry toddler at home who would rather I play trucks and read him books than attend to a stove. So, I use the Instant Pot to make beans (the boy can't get enough beans) and ridiculously good Butter Chicken and spicy carrot soup and even hard boiled eggs sometimes when I can't be next to the stove because a little person is exclaiming "halp pwease!" because his favorite fire truck rolled underneath the media stand and he can't get it out (and, despite my best efforts, I haven't trained the cat to fetch toys yet either).
So, I love the Instant Pot and I'm so glad I have one. Even though, like you said, the rubber gasket sure does smell like the last thing I made! :)
Grammy
Thanks for the honest and thorough review. I expected no less from you.
Sounds like I'd like the Instant Pot for a few things, but not enough things to find a place for it in my small kitchen. I'm one of those people who doesn't find most cooking too difficult or time-consuming, plus I'm retired. I wouldn't fault any working person for buying it and using it, or any other thing that enables them to get dinner on the table after commuting and working all day. I used to do that, and the memory of those days will never leave me.
So it sounds like Instant Pot is pure gold for those who need it and not so much for those of us who don't. Like most things in life. Thanks for checking it out for us, Karen.
Rebecca
Well said, as usual. 😊
Kat
I don't often comment here although I love your blog and read it every time. I love your blog and I love the Instant Pot and I love cooking. I don't use the Instant Pot for everything and I don't want to use it for everything, but I work a sixty to seventy hour week and believe me there is a great advantage some days to being able to shove a soup or curry or chilli or similar in and collapse while it cooks.
I don't care if it takes a bit of time to heat up - though putting everything in hot helps, and I do most of the seasoning/adding at the end, so I don't care about that bit either. What I do care about is that it gives me something hot and healthy with minimal effort after a very, very long day's work. But I wouldn't use it to roast anything or make desserts or cakes etc or for food that needs a delicate touch. And I've learned with time to cook much better with it than I did at the start.
Even if I could afford a pre prepped service like Blue Apron every day (which I couldn't) I live in an area where that option doesn't exist - and also I want to use my own (and local organic) food.
I get your point. And I still love mine for the uses I put it to.
Thandi
Excellent points! I'm not too keen on trying one, it's just not the way I cook, but I totally hear you on the Collapse & Cook method of feeding yourself in the week. You've just given me some great ammunition to talk my spouse into buying a pressure cooker ;-)
Catherine
Precisely, a good big pressure cooker will accomplish the cook and collapse goal better, and will be faster coming up to pressure. Plus you can still make the bone broth and the use the pressure cooker to actually can the broth so it is shelf stable.
marilyn meagher
I love to cook as well so I wouldn't bother with this gadget.
Dwight
I have been using a CuisineArt stove top pressure cooker made in Belgium for the past 40 years. I was raised on watching my mother’s steam belching weight wiggling model, which always fascinated me. So, I thought I would try an 8 qt IP. It worked great. Pressure cooking is fun!
Mindy Northrop
I was so confused by the craze. Although I can't give a fair review, never having tried one, it seems ridiculous. Two thumbs down from Portland, Oregon.
FACM
Agree. I already use a pressure cooker, slow cooker and other pots/pans/steamer basket, blender as needed. So far I haven't been hindered by the few useful utensils I have. And I like my hands-on spontaneous, sometimes partly improvised as I go along cooking. For me cooking is a very relaxing, sensory zen-like experience.
chloe crofton
Great review and very honest! I do not like instant anything in the kitchen either, as
it just takes any skills you have and makes them pointless.
I grew up learning to enjoy every step of baking and cooking with a lot of recipe following.
We took shortcuts or worked as a team to make things efficient and out the door faster.
Literally as we were running a bakery and cafe! The people are what make things, I am not ready for robotic beings to be taking over that part of my life yet! Cooking is also tactile and involves smell, touch, asking taster assistants, taste yourself and sight! Without the interaction of your senses with the dish- it will just be plain- in my view. I also think that making things even easier for non cooks in the kitchen with too many gadgets to cheat the cooking process just limits their ability to become great cooks in the future! People want everything quick easy and instant, and crafts, cooking, baking, diy whatever creative and time using tasks are not interesting to all in 2017. Lost arts will be the base of your blog soon
as everyone does it herself virtually and only use their hands to use their smartphones, tablets, gps and instant pots! Thanks for cheering my evening anyway! Chloe
Tina
Agreed!
karin sorensen
well said! true and sad. but I'm not worried, since with Karen and all TAODS I'm in perfect company.
we are of the creating tribe
the trial and error folks,
the take your time and enjoy folks.
Agnes
Instant pot is great for those who come home tired after work, but want a nice home cooked meal without having to wait too long. You keep it on the counter so that you don't have to pull it out. You don't use it just for 1-pot meals. As you cook your meat on the stove or grill, cook unsoaked dry beans in instant pot for a nice bean salad. Then you steam vegetables in the instant pot using quick release; don't wait for it to come to room pressure gradually. And voila, you have a well balanced meal. So many options and opportunities. My son got me an instant pot for Christmas last year. It has tremendously cut my time in the kitchen.
Paula
I own it, too. I really enjoy the flavour but like you mentioned, I only use it for a few things and so far, only in the winter.
SandyToes
Hello Paula,
I live in a hot climate and one of my favorite things about the Instant Pot is that I can make long-cooking chilis, stews, braises, and Marcella's Bolognese any time I want, because it doesn't overheat my kitchen. Before I bought it I used to pray for cold weather (which is mostly December-early March) so I could use my oven or stovetop for 3 hours or more. Heck, Super Bowl chili wasn't even a given, because it might be 80 degrees.
Julia Fabrin
Hey I just want to ask - how long do you cook Marcellas Bolognese in the instant pot for? It's one of my fav stovetop recipes and would love to try cook it in the IP!
Julia Fabrin
Oh and do you still cook off the alcohol in the wine before setting the IP to pressure? Sorry just really interested in how you've adapted the recipe :) and thanks!
Kath
Soooo anyway- re: yogurt making, I'm confused. Is the gag ball a requirement?
Lois Baron
lol. I wondered that too!
Tina
That was going to be my comment. I've never found the gag ball to do anything for my yogurt.
Karen
I mean, kind of, yeah. ~ karen!