Cooking is serious work, and it requires serious tools. Sharp knifes, large pots, heavy-duty pans – if you don’t have the right tools, cooking can be a practice in frustration. What I love about cooking is that with only a couple of good, but basic tools you can make a wealth of dishes.
But what I also appreciate about kitchen tools, is that there are some that substantially make your life easier. A slow cooker, food processor, or high powered blender, for example.
As many of you know, we are in the middle of treating for a chronic illness, which has been difficult to do with three young kids in the house. My husband and I have been keeping notes on our kitchen prep trying to streamline it where we could, keeping a list of simple, but healthy dinners we can throw together at the end of a long day, and buying things like pre-prepped vegetables.
But there was one kitchen tool that we didn’t have yet, that after thoroughly researching (and hearing the rave reviews of my extended family) I felt would be a tremendous help. The Instant Pot . This is a new kind of pressure cooker that is both safe, and extremely easy to use. The best part is I can make “24 hour broth” in 2 hours using it, or make a dinner with frozen meat on nights when I’ve forgot to defrost it.
My Instagram account is full of pictures from fellow mothers who are using theirs constantly as a way to bring nourishing food to the table in less time and less work. Nourishing soups, stews, broths, roasts, teriyaki chicken, and more seemed to populate my Instagram feed after being cooked in it.
My husband and I were trying to count our pennies to see if we could buy one this year, when my sweet sister and brother-in-law surprised us by buying one for us for my birthday! I was so surprised and so excited! After opening up the present, they served us a rich chicken soup that they had cooked in their own Instant Pot , and I couldn’t believe how fast they had cooked it! With only 30 minutes “at pressure” cooking, they had gotten a whole chicken to turn into a wonderful chicken soup that was as rich as my broths when cooked 18 to 24 hours.
You can bet your last dollar that I’m excited about this gift. I’m thankful because I know it will make my cooking so much easier and faster, and that is a true gift for us during this season.
This is the version we own: Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cooker.
(My one caution is that if you are really sensitive to even naturally produced glutamates, please be aware that pressure cooking increases them in certain dishes. )
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Thanks for this. I haven’t yet taken the plunge but got one for my brother in law. I can see him really getting into it!