Adventures in Pressure Cooking

The most wanted item on my Christmas list was a pressure cooker.  Yeah, I know I am weird, but we all knew that!  I've heard what time savers they are.  Time is more precious to me than just about anything else.  We do our share of eating out, but I really do try to cook as much as possible.  This can be quite time consuming.  Sometimes, after spending nine hours at the office and 80-90 minutes per day commuting to and from the office, preparing a meal is not at the top of my agenda.  I am sure you can relate!

 Santa heard my wishes, and brought me an 8qt. anodized model, along with a new cookbook to get me started.   $7 a Meal, hmm . . . really??

I was a little apprehensive to give this a whirl, having heard horror stories of exploding pressure cookers.  I read the directions over and over.   It seems these new models are equipped with safety features that will prevent any major explosions.   With that, I decided to first make corned beef, a family favorite!   I placed the meat, along with one bay leaf, a glove of garlic and some pickling spices in the cooker, then covered it all with water.  How simple!

 So far, so good ~ no explosions!

A little over an hour later, that corned beef came out so tender I could cut it with a butter knife.  I was impressed!  We piled it on some onion rolls along with cheese and mustard ~ Mmmmm!!