Instant Pot Adventures

I bought an Instant Pot on Prime day and it has made me 100% more excited about cooking because it’s so easy and quick. I have been wanting to write about what I’m doing, but I’ve been so busy actually using it, there hasn’t been time. I came up with this list as to why I like it so much.

1. I don’t like to smell food cooking when I cook. I don’t mind so much if other people are cooking. But by the time I spend time preparing the food and then smelling it cook, I don’t want to eat it anymore.
2. I’ve gone rogue a few times because I didn’t realize I wasn’t reading an Instant Pot recipe, and everything has turned out fine. I tried to make Shepherd’s pie and Chicken Scampi and realized I either read the recipe wrong or did not have an instant pot recipe to use. I looked up a few other recipes for the Shepherd’s pie but they used different ingredients so I basically just tried to figure out how long to cook it and did my own thing. For the Scampi, I went totally rogue and made it with orzo because I wanted to try cooking it. (7 min on manual).
3. The yogurt is amazing. Amazing, that’s I all I can say other than how thrilling it is when you open the pot in the morning and your ingredients actually smell like yogurt.
4. I love sautéing in the same pot I am cooking in.
5. I like cooking in the same pot I am mixing ingredients in (not always but it still helps).
6. I love the scent of sautéed garlic.
7. The perfection of the hard boiled egg. Although I normally like my eggs a little runny, they don’t get too hard, so they taste wonderful.
8. It’s interesting to learn techniques for improving. The first time I made chicken breast I left it in the liquid and it didn’t retain the seasoning. The texture was soft as opposed to oven chicken so I liked that about it, but it was bland. The next time I cooked it on a trivet and also used more seasoning. I also tried sautéing it and then cooking it.
9. I get a practical way to get my mom’s cooking wisdom: My mom doesn’t really like cooking and doesn’t think she cooks well as other people in the family, but it’s what I grew up eating and to tell the truth, my friends have enjoyed her cooking so it can’t be that bad. But as I try new recipes, I usually have to ask her something. For example, I was trying to grate nutmeg recently and I was scraping away for a moment and realizing nothing was happening so I asked and my mom said I was grating the shell and we laughed. She then proceeded to get a half of one, but she did it herself. (She tries to be helpful and do it, but then I don’t learn. Also, She gets impatient watching if I’m going slow and tries to do things. Or, she’ll want to wash things and put them away when you’re still using it…ok – I’m done telling on my mother!).
10. Food cooks faster! Short Ribs took 35 minutes to cook as opposed to 2 1/2 hours!
11. A chance to improve my dicing and mincing skills. I’ve always wanted to learn how to chop vegetables expertly. I’m not sure how well I will master this because I bought a pampered chef chopper to make things faster. But, there’s always still a little chopping involved.
12. You don’t have to babysit or keep checking on the food when it’s cooking.
13. Grocery shopping is more fun as I look for ingredients for my recipes.