If  you found a new pressure cooker waiting for you under your Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush, then I can help you so that you take it out of the box and use it.

My story is that the first pressure cooker I bought in 1986 came home and sat, waiting for me to use it.  On Day 13 of  a 14 day return policy, I brought it back to the store, having never even opened the box. I still wish that I had at least tried it out but fear kept me from doing so. Don’t let that be you.

Here’s what I suggest: take the cooker out of the box, skim the instruction booklet which will tell you to wash and dry the cooker. Then add 1 cup of water to your cooker and bring it to pressure. How you do that will depend upon whether you have an electric pressure cooker or a stove top model. With the electric cooker, you will need to plug it in and set the timer to at least 5 minutes.  You will hear a  noticeable clink which means that the valve shut.  After 5 minutes, practice letting the pressure out by turning the valve on top and waiting for the steam to release. It is hot, so be careful.

For the stove top cooker, add the water and lock on the lid. Put the cooker on the stove and turn the heat to high. When the little valve pops up, you have achieved pressure. Turn the heat down to maintain pressure (for as long as you like) and then remove the cooker from the heat and turn the knob or push down to release the pressure (how you do this will depend upon the make and model of pressure cooker). See my video here.

After you do the water test, I suggest that you make stock. You can watch me do that by clicking here. Here is the recipe for making stock in the pressure cooker. It is fast, easy and eliminates the need for boxed or canned stock.

After you  make stock let me know how it goes. You can also make stock specific to the soup that you are making such as garlic stock, pea stock, corn stock or whatever your imagination can think up.

Use your pressure cooker and have fun doing it.

Kathy Hester, author of The Vegan Slow Cooker cookbook, gave me a chance to write about using the pressure cooker for some of her slow cooker recipes. Not one to turn down a challenge, I went for it.

It turns out that you can easily use slow cooker recipes in your pressure cooker with some adjustments. As long as the recipe uses liquid, the pressure cooker will work out great.  Read that post now.

As I said on Chow.com, the pressure cooker is the slow cooker on steroids. Read more about that here.

Pressure Cooker Mexican Quinoa with Black Beans (Adapted from Kathy Hester’s recipe of the same name except for Slow  Cooker at the beginning  of the recipe)

Serves 4 or more

1 ½ cups bell pepper , chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 to 2 teaspoons chili powder, or to taste

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¾ cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained

1 cup soaked black beans, drained

1 ½ cups water or broth

1 14.6 ounce can diced tomatoes, not drained

Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the peppers and sauté for 1 minute. Add the garlic and spices and sauté another minute. Add the d

rained quinoa and toast for 1 minute. Add the drained black beans and water or broth. Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Bring to high pressure over high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain high pressure for 6 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let the pressure come down.

Remove the lid, tilting it away from you. Stir in the tomatoes. Taste and add salt, more cumin extra chili powder or whatever you want to make this taste the way that you like it.

Turn this into

Mexican Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers (gluten-free, vegan)

Makes 8 to 12 burgers, depending upon the size

Sauté 1 sliced onion and 1 clove minced garlic. Add 1 cup fresh or frozen corn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the onion is translucent.  I also added  more spices to the mixture.

Add the cooked vegetables to the cooked quinoa mixture in a food processor. Pulse a few times. Add 1/2 to 1 cup baby (or quick cooking) or regular rolled oats. Process by pulsing a few times until the mixture gets thicker. Do not process too long.

Remove the mixture and let sit a few minutes. Form into patties.  Let those sit for a few minutes to take shape.

Place the burgers on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F. for 15 minutes. Turn and bake for another 10 minutes until both sides are crispy.

You can freeze these burgers. I do that by wrapping them with wax paper and placing in a plastic bag. To reheat, I put them in the toaster oven and toast them

a couple of times until they are heated through or rebake them at 350 degrees.

Oh, so tasty. And really not much work. Will you make them?

Some bloggers concoct recipes because they have a keen desire to publish and photograph them. I have a keen desire to eat — at least 3 meals and a number of snacks a day. Since this is a blog about pressure cooking, I am not going to mention any raw food that I eat, but I do that, too.

Today, I did a take off of one of my own recipes for the pressure cooker: Green and Red Bean African Curry which is a riff on an African Curry recipe that I learned from Shuli and Ronit of Whole Spice, which is where I get the mighty delicious African curry powder.

Today the curry did not contain red beans (kidney) but did have marinated Zesty Lemon tempeh from Lightlife Foods, as well as potatoes. At the end of cooking I added some corn cut off the cob, which I cooked on the cob last night for 2 minutes in the pressure cooker.

The whole dish requires about 3 minutes at pressure. I say about because I used freshly dug potatoes and they sometimes only require a couple of minutes cooking. I do this dish in increments, using a quick release in between.

Here’s what I discovered:

I was hungry and I ate a lot of this for lunch.

1. I prefer to marinate my own tempeh and do not care for the Lightlife but like the Turtle Island brand marinated tempeh better.
2. The dish really does taste better with kidney beans but I didn’t have any, and wanted a protein component.
3. This curry, like many others, is highly adaptable and many seasonal vegetables could be added or substituted. I thought about adding summer squash or greens but that thought quickly left my head as I started cooking because I was so hungry.
4. I still love my pressure cooker and what it does for me, and how quickly it does it. I can have a meal in almost no time — less than 15 minutes from cutting board to mouth.

And that’s why I blog — for meals. If you want the recipe for the African curry, please leave a comment or email me jill at pressurecookingonline.com.

If you are interested in learning more about pressure cookers or how to use them please check out the rest of this site, especially the pressure cooker page.

Over at Pinch My Salt people are going ga ga over steel cut oats. And they have to cook them for at least 25 minutes.

Pressure Cooker Friend or Foe?

I just told the proprietor of a cooking store that if I had one dollar for each person who told me that they are afraid of the pressure cooker, that I would likely be retired and sitting on the beach somewhere. Even after teaching pressure  cooking for more than 15 years, I still  have a tough time convincing some people that pressure cooking is safe and easy. Not only that, you can save time and money and produce incredibly tasty food easily.

So, where do you stand on pressure cooking? Do you love your sleek, shiny “modern” (no jiggler) pressure cooker? Or have you let it languish in a box in the back of the closet or garage where you dare not go?

If you use your pressure cooker, have you ventured beyond artichokes and beans? A former caterer told me this morning that she must need my new cookbook The New  Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30 Minutes so that she can learn to do more with her pressure cooker.

Have you made any fabulous food? Or are you afraid?

If you are the latter, how can I help you get over your fear? Can I show you something like my You Tube videos? Might I share testimonials of real people who say that the pressure cooker changed their life? How can I get you to join me in the greenest (most eco-friendly) way to cook short of solar cooking?

After all my time teaching people about pressure cooking, I am still excited about using the pressure cooker and the amazing results that I get from doing so. When I can make lentil soup in 20 minutes from start to finish, I am continually amazed. My 3-Minute Tofu, Potatoes and Vegetables still tastes great. I have not likely made it the same way twice ever.

I hope that you’ll join me on this amazing cooking journey. I don’t want to go it alone, unless everyone who is afraid of the pressure cooker sends me one dollar. In that instance, I will start blogging from the beach.