INSTANT POT: my new love!

eclecticpixxie

Young, what I found was that, when I cooked roasts in a slow cooker they always came out either dry or sitting in a pool of grease. YUCK! And still dry on top. I was SO amazed at how fork tender and juicy the roast came out! Next time any kind of roast is on sale at the store- I'm buying it up!

flowerhorsey

Does anyone know if all instapots are the same pretty much? I need for slow cooking and probably pressure cooking if it really is easy to use? Thanks!

debrakgoogins

For anyone that has been on the fence about buying one, the IP Ultra 10-1 which includes the yogurt and sterilizing function is on sale for $99.96 on Amazon right now. I use mine several times a week and even have one for my seasonal camp.

debrakgoogins

crazyravr wrote: »

Never said its hard work. Its easy. Its time consuming, thats all and to me not worth it at all.

If you have the yogurt function, it's not that time consuming. I mean, yes, it takes a long time but if you set it to work overnight, your entire invested time is minutes to have complete control over what ingredients go into it. Use the cold start method with Fairlife milk and two tablespoons yogurt. Set it for 8 hours. In the morning, stick it in the fridge to cool it. If you want Greek style, spoon it into a strainer before sticking it in the fridge. Done.

PloddingTurtle

I love my Instant Pot for weekend batch cooking, which works beautifully for my busy schedule and keeps me eating healthy food at home, which works out for both my budget and my diet. What used to take me two full weekend days now takes, at most, a half day in the kitchen. Beef stew that used to take hours to simmer in order to soften those tough cuts of meat, now takes hardly any time at all. I can now cook in the summer without turning my apartment into a sauna. If I'm really organized and have multiple ingredients for different recipes ready to go, I can do with one IP what I used to spread out over a month's worth of weekends and get it done in one day.

One of my new favourite things to do is to cook two whole chickens in quick succession. I freeze the cooked breasts separately in freezer bags (for quick salad making meals on busy/hot days - I can use the entire 6-oz breast or cut it in two for two separate salad meals). I use the remaining meat to make chicken salad for the upcoming week's worth of lunches. And, it gives me a fantastic chicken broth for future soup making. I used to freeze chicken carcasses until I had enough to make a big pot of broth. Now with batch cooking two birds on the same day, I can put the carcasses and any iffy veggies from the refrigerator plus an onion back into the pot for a quick broth making process, then strain out an intensely wonderful chicken broth. I am a dedicated souper, and having my own chicken broth to use as the starting base has added to the flavour and my pleasure. It's almost as if the IP squeezes every last bit of food value from each chicken carcass. I usually refrigerate the strained stock overnight to skim off an obvious layer of chicken fat. If I'm not making soup on the same weekend, I freeze the broth for a future souping day.

My challenge now is to keep track of all the foods I've made and frozen to make sure I eat them before the freezer damages them.

Garnet2727

I bought an Ultra about a month ago but it was defective and I had to send it back. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Lux. Holy moly, I love this thing! I now cook enough steel cut oats for my breakfast during the work week. I've also made white chicken chili, pinto beans and chorizo, and shawarma flavored chicken. Tonight, I'll be trying a new ground turkey chili recipe. I like my chilies, can you tell?