Pressure Cooking

I've been longing after the Instant Pot ever since I first saw Chef AJ cooking with an electric pressure cooker in her Chef and the Dietician videos on YouTube. I already own a Fagor for over 5 years now but rarely use it as a pressure cooker. I have a hard time getting it to seal, sometimes taking over 5 minutes just to get the lid on right, then it takes a few more minutes waiting for the water to boil and noticing it never comes to any pressure, so I have to turn off the heat, remove the lid, and start all over again. I love the Fagor pot itself, with its super thick bottom that retains heat for a long time. Soups and stews made in this as a plain old pot come out terrific.

Other times, no matter how long I cook a pot of beans, they never soften to my liking, which is as soft as beans from a can. No added salt, no added tomatoes, beans newly purchased, they just won't cook.

And let's face it, beans cooked from dry with no salt tastes a heck of a lot different than canned beans rinsed for a minute or so. I finally found a source for some no-salt added beans from Goya, but even though they cost less than Eden brand they're still sometimes twice the price of regular Goya beans with salt. 

My husband has told me I can go ahead and buy an electric pressure cooker after seeing me watch all those Chef AJ chili recipes again and sighing. He mistook the sigh to mean "she wants that pot," instead of "It's almost time to start dinner and I don't feel like moving" sigh, but if he's willing to let me spend the money, I won't argue!

I started looking around to find places besides Chef AJ's videos to get McDougall-safe recipes, and remembered the Vegan Pressure Cooker Yahoogroup, run by Susan V of Fat Free Vegan. I just rejoined today, and encourage others who are interested in healthy WFPB, no SOS cooking to also join up. I was surprised to see that although there are almost 200 members, there's been no activity for over a year! We can really use some new blood and activity over there, and if any of the current members are reading this, why not pop in again and say Hi to let us all know you're still around. And if you have a favorite PC recipe to share or even need help in transforming a non-PC recipe into a PC one, just give a shout. I'm sure somebody there will be be able to help with the conversion.

Now to find a good (cheap) source for organic heirloom beans. I've been on the wait list at Rancho Gordo for over a year now and the local HFS has been getting less and less dried beans, so I better start looking elsewhere so I'll have something to make right away when I do order my IP.