Instant Meals

Instant Meals

By Angie Sutton, momsapronstrings.com

One of the most amazing things about craftsmanship in the kitchen is the timeless nature of being able to use core ingredients in creating masterpiece meals. A great chef doesn’t necessarily need extra special tools to make tasty food.

The art has little to do with technology or gadgets but rather skills that come from the right mix of time, temperature and at least one secret element with a special pinch of this or that. Yet, it seems that we see trends of interesting gadgets that fascinate because of their so-called ease of simplicity.

Items like the EZCracker is used for breaking eggs without getting yolk on your hands or the curl-a-dog that gives hot dogs a spiral cut “for gourmet tasting hot dogs!” Or put “OMatic” on the end of anything and sell it: VegOMatic, SliceOMatic, CrepeOMatic, KitchenOMatic…. The list is nearly endless! There’s the garlicpro, vegetti, slapchop, egg cookers, pasta boat and even the Perfect Bacon Bowl that helps you make a bowl out of, you guessed it, BACON!

Most of these items don’t last long in our kitchen arsenal, whether it’s hard to justify the space a bacon bowl maker takes up or they just don’t end up working as well as the As Seen On TV ads show.

One newer tool the past few years that has taken its place atop the kitchen technology buzz is the electric pressure cooker. Many of our grandparents thrived using an old-fashioned pressure cooker but our parents may have been scared away by the dangers of the bomb-like nature of the highly pressurized utensil.

Now with the rise of electric pressure cookers, led by Instant Pot, the dangers have been mostly removed while adding easy-to-use digital features on programming for a host of food options. Still, many are scared to even venture into the electric pressure cooker world and might even own one while never having pulled it out of the box.

The electric pressure cooker community is thriving and will gladly offer support to newbies a bit too afraid to give their pressure cooker a first run. Rather than fret over the fear of possibly ruining your first pressure cooker meal (which is highly unlikely), here’s a first step you can take to venture into it: the water test.

Simply put, this test allows you to use the core features of the electric pressure cooker and show you what a pressure release is like, which is what most users are afraid of.

With the pressure cooker unpacked and only the inner pot inside (tip, you always use the inner pot), put 1 cup of water inside. Next, put the lid on, turning it to lock in place. You’ll want to make sure the valve on the lid is in the closed position so that it can seal in the pressure.

After the electric pressure cooker is plugged in and turned on, press manual. This will allow you to select the time your food is under pressure in total. Arrow down to a low amount (5 minutes or less). Once you get to your set time, just sit back and watch.

It takes some time for the machine to reach full pressure depending on the amount of ingredients (mainly liquid) in the inner pot. One cup of water should reach full pressure in five to 10 minutes. While it’s warming up, you’ll be able to see the valve on top where some steam is escaping. It will finally seal. Your screen will then change to the time you scrolled to when you set the manual timing option and count down until its done.

Once your machine finishes, it will beep to alert you. Here you can make two choices. You can do nothing and allow it to depressurize naturally, which takes some time or you can turn the pressure valve on top to allow a quick release of pressure. This is what worries most people, but don’t fret, it’s very safe.

I would suggest using the quick release for most options, unless you are cooking a starch like potatoes. The quick release still takes a couple minutes, but it’s a bit loud with a lot of steam shooting out.

For a first time using “real” ingredients, you might try starting with my hard-boiled eggs recipe. The recipe shows manual at 8 minutes, but with a little more water (1 cup rather than ½ cup), you can decrease the time under pressure to 6 minutes. Go less for more soft-boiled eggs. This has been a superb way to have easy peeling eggs on hand in our house.

From there, it’s easy to dive in to the world of easy and quick pressure cooking. There are many online communities to ask questions, find recipes, and get support for trying new things. The biggest tip in using an electric pressure cooker is to remember the warm-up time to get to full pressure as well as the pressure release time afterward. In many instances, plan on doubling or even tripling the amount of time your food is under pressure to fully allow for the entire experience.

I hope you find your electric pressure cooker a useful tool that you don’t mind keeping on hand. This is one that has earned its spot in our cabinets. Here is an easy recipe to start with.

Instant Pot Sloppy Joes

Serve with whole wheat hamburger buns.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 lbs. lean ground beef

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, finely diced

1 garlic clove, minced

1 Tbsp. light brown sugar

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 c. tap water

1 Tbsp. tomato paste

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

3/4 c. ketchup

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Press Sauté button and Adjust button once to Sauté More function. Indicator will say HOT. Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil to cooker to evenly cover entire bottom of pan. Add ground beef and season with salt and pepper. Brown beef and break into crumbles as it cooks. Drain any juice that accumulates.

2. Add diced onion to the beef and sauté for 2 minutes before adding diced bell pepper and minced garlic; sauté one additional minute.

3. Add brown sugar, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and water. Stir together while scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula.

4. Add tomato paste, Dijon mustard and ketchup but do not mix! Close lid and pressure cook on high pressure for 5 minutes and then pressure release method for 10 minutes to natural release. After 10 minutes, turn the venting know to venting position to release any remaining pressure. Cautiously open lid to avoid steam.

Apron Strings Tips: You can drain any remaining liquid after step 4 or turn the pot back on to sauté and cook down the liquid.