Pressure Cooking

Sorry for the funny photo... I'm not very glamorous at staging foods. This is some chicken broth and it is HOT, that I made in my pressure cooker. I am still amazed at how good chicken broth tastes this way and also what a great way to save money it is!

I put 3 chicken breasts and 6-7 thighs in my 8 qt pressure cooker. Next I added one gallon of water and because I'm not supposed to be up standing a lot on my knee still, I didn't put fresh onion and garlic, but usually I do. This time I used dehydrated onions and granulated garlic. (The sediment you see on the bottom of the jar is the onions, garlic etc.) After that I tossed in Cumin, Salt, dried Cilantro, red pepper flakes and Cayenne Pepper. Well, in my brain I was thinking of paprika, not Cayenne and I ended up with chicken broth so HOOOOOT that it's almost unbearable! LOL It's going to have to be thinned down with some store bought broth.

I cooked this at pressure for 5 minutes and then let the pressure go naturally, which was supposed to take 5 minutes but I think it took ten. Chicken cooked this way is moist and tastes great. It is an excellent way to make shredded chicken for Mexican cooking and salads.

Generally I use the broth the next day to cook rice in the pressure cooker, but since it was so hot, I'm holding off on that for awhile! :o) I will freeze some of it though for later use. In the future I will start canning that. Making broth this ways uses NO BOUILLON! This means NO MSG. Yeah!

In the spring I purchased this Fagor set and really love it. First I did research and after reading an article reviewing their performance at America's Test Kitchen, I chose Fagor over some of the more expensive Swiss sets because they said it performed just as well as a set 3-5 times the price and had gread safety measures built in - which as a Mom, is important. I love it so much that I will be getting another one next spring when we get our tax return - a larger one to do more stuff! This will also give me two lids so that hopefully I can use two pots at the same time. Currently I have two pots but only one pressure cooker lid. They are made really well of high quality stainless steel, which was a priority for me as well.

On one of my blog hopping adventures I found The Veggie Queen and ordered her DVD, hoping to learn more. Imagine my surprise when she was using my very same pressure cooker! I did learn a lot of tips watching her but for less money could have bought her cookbook that has a couple chapters on pressure cooking. She is vegetarian and gave a lot of great ideas.

You don't need to be vegetarian to enjoy it. In fact one of our favorite things is to make a fork tender pot roast in 45 minutes! I have found that I can use cheaper roast cuts and they will be more tender cooked in the pressure cooker.

Our favorite thing to cook in it though is rice. It is so much easier and makes brown rice so much more enjoyable than the steamer (which leaves it chewy/crunchy).

The best pressure cooker specific cookbook I have found is Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass. I also have her book Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, which I haven't used yet, but plan to in the near future. I would love to explore more nutritious side dishes than just having potatoes or pasta all the time. And I am hoping to experiment with Legumes, which aren't a favorite in our family but we are trying to do some more healthy foods and so we (the big people) are willing to try! :o)

Do any of you use a pressure cooker? If so, do you have any favorites or tips to share? I'd love to hear.

More On Meat

For anyone interested, my friend Deborah received some meat from U.S. Wellness Meats. They sell grass fed beef and other meat. I have to admit that since I have never mail ordered meat, it sounds a little strange, but Deborah's sister found this place and so they tried it out.

We are very fortunate to have a lot of local resources, but some of them don't have a huge variety of cuts, like this place. I think it's always best to get local products when possible, but also I recognize that some people have no local resources for certain types of food. I'm not talking about exotic fruit or such, but everyday organic foods.

Even if you aren't interested in ordering meat, I found this pdf helpful in understanding the different cuts of meat.

What You Need To Know About The Beef You Eat

If you think buying organic dairy products is expensive, try the beef! We have been trying to switch over but it's not easy. Reducing how much meat we eat has helped as well as the fact that Costco has been carrying an organic ground beef. I read this article at Mother Earth News and EWWWW YUCK! I know there is a lot of anti this and that information out there, so sometimes it is hard to know who is telling the truth. However, this is a well documented and researched article and falls in line with other things I have been reading.

The article is long but at the end there is a great summary that I am going to print out and put in my Kitchen binder in the shopping section so that I can have a handy reference.

They also recommend that you look for local sources and link to Eat Wild, which is a new resource to me and Local Harvest, a great resource I have referred to in the past.

Another article at Mother Earth News speaks about the process of injecting meat with fluids and gasses to prolong its life and/or mask negative qualities.

I have to laugh. I grew up thinking that Mother Earth News was for Godless Heathen Hippies! LOL Now I'm reading it myself and learning. It is still not a Christian resources but it is a good resource for certain things.