The Instant Pot

Last Christmas my friend Betsy got a new kitchen work horse: the Instant Pot.  She told me how great it was and I was intrigued, but I really had no need for another kitchen appliance.  Then, after doing a deep clean on my crock-pot (and apparently getting water behind the electronic panel), it died on Easter Sunday with the ham already in it!  I was less than pleased.  Luckily I have the kind of Crockpot that has a removable stoneware crock and I was able to save Easter dinner in the oven.

Now I had my chance!  I had a genuine reason to shop for a new kitchen gadget and the Instant Pot was at the top of my list.  It wasn't cheap, but it was more than a slow cooker, it was a pressure cooker, rice cooker and yogurt maker.  Normally I say appliances that try to do many things can only do them poorly, but so far my Instant Pot 7-in-1 has yet to disappoint.  I have made many recipes with this appliance and I even removed my food processor from the counter top to make room for this pot to stay out all the time.

Here are just a few things I like about the Instant Pot.  It:

• allows me to make homemade yogurt and coconut yogurt cheaply and with minimal effort
• shortens cooking time for most dinner entrees by 50% or more
• as a nice display with self-explanatory buttons
• has wonderful side slots that hold the lid for you while you saute or for serving
• has an easy to clean, dishwasher safe stainless steel pot
• makes the perfect brown rice in less than 45 minutes
• turns two-pot slow cooker meals into 1-pot meals with the built-in saute feature 
• comes with a recipe book that helps to introduce you to pressure cooking as well as yogurt making
• cooks greens in a way that I actually like them! 

Drawbacks are few.  One of the drawbacks is that you have to be careful and not add any ingredients that might scorch before you use the pressure cooker.  Many recipes add flour to the pot before cooking, but the flour will scorch and prevent the cooker from functioning properly.  If this happens you will get a "Ovht" error and the pot will shut off.  Once, I had to remove an entire (still raw) chicken from the pot and clean the liner before returning the chicken and the pot to the cooker.  Now that I know I won't make that mistake again, and hopefully by reading this review you won't make it either!

Betsy has invited me to post recipe reviews for this pressure cooker over on her fulltummies page, so in the next few weeks or so you can look for full recipes there.  

Happy cooking!

Kitchen Aid Professional 5 Mixer

7 pounds of mashed potatoes, 10 dozen cookies, and 6 loaves of white bread. What do these all have in common? They can fit in the bowl of my mixer! Granted, I've never actually made 6 loaves of white bread, but I have made plenty of cookies, mashed potatoes, cakes, icing to go on cakes, and even divinity in my mixer. I remember trying to make my family's molasses crinkles one year with a hand mixer and thinking the poor thing was going to give out at any second. I don't even think I got to finish mixing the dough with the hand held, but when I made it in this mixer the planetary motion had no problem with this firm sticky dough.

I own the 5 quart stand mixer by Kitchen Aid that has 10 speeds and an attachment port that drives my meat grinder. I also don't grind meat, but I can make a mean cranberry relish! I used to have the "salad shooter" attachment but then I got my food processor and didn't really need the attachment any more. I did see Mario Batli rave about the pasta attachment on Oprah the other day and he has peaked my interest. It would be cool to make my own pasta right before dinner.

For other products I have deducted a star for price but not for this product! Now I hear some of you out there thinking, "But it's so expensive!" I agree that this mixer is probably more expensive than most other stand mixers out there on the market, but I have some thoughts about that. The best thing to do is get this item as a wedding present, but alas, some of us are past that point. First of all, if you are thinking of purchasing this mixer I advise you to wait for a sale. Not just any sale, but a really good one. I bought mine for at least $100 off retail at Kohl's right after Christmas. Secondly, I would say that for all the other mixers you will buy in your lifetime, you could just invest in one really good mixer. I'm writing this post not because of Mario and Oprah, but because my mom just texted me that her mixer died and she wanted to know what kind I had. Kitchen Aid, baby!

I know some friends who have the tilt head version (my "good" friend Alton Brown) and I really think the only difference is that on the stand mixer you do have to take the beater off to remove the bowl. I would take the beater off anyway in most cases, so this does not bother me. I also didn't want the tilt head because I like my mixer to sit way back on the counter under the cabinets, and if I had the tilt version I would need to pull the mixer out to be able to tilt it. I do still own a hand held mixer (I wonder where it is?) but I can't remember the last time I needed it.

Cordless Electric Water Kettle: 5 Stars

With as much tea as Philip drinks this kettle gets 5 stars in our house. It is an entirely stainless steel kettle (except for the lid) that stay cool to the touch even when the water inside is boiling. It is probably the fastest boiling kettle that I have ever used. The coolest feature is probably that it is cordless and works by just setting the kettle on the base. When Ethan was just born and we were warming up bottles upstairs at 2 in the morning, it was essential to our life. Now Philip uses it mostly for drinking tea, but any other time I need boiling water I will use it instead of the microwave.

Food Processor: 5 Stars

So you might be thinking that this is not a kid related item, but I made 2/3 (maybe even 3/4) of all of my son's babyfood in this thing. My husband has also been making his own Lara Bars in it and they are awesome (and about 1/10 of the price of the real thing). My son loves the bars too, so it makes a healthy treat for all of us.

This particular processor is great because it has two different bowls to process food in. I use to puree small batches of prunes in the small bowl and then puree carrots, sweet potatoes, etc. in the big bowl. It also grates a large block of cheese in about 30 seconds. Home grated cheese tastes so much better than that pre-grated stuff!

I love my food processor and I hope to never live without one again. Here is an awesome "big people" recipe you can make if you have one: Roast Beef with Spicy Parsley Tomato Sauce.
My husband loves this recipe and requests if often.