Month: July 2013

Not too long ago, I stumbled upon this amazing site called Hip Pressure Cooking. Interesting name, right?

Of course I was curious, I know a lot about canning with my large 23 qt. pressure cooker.

I also know that many myths about pressure cooking, such as most of the nutrients are lost, are simply not true! But I don’t know a lot about preparing meals with a small pressure cooker! Browsing through the site I can see it’ll come in handy since I recently purchased my Presto 8 qt. pressure cooker.

I was thrilled to see an extensive list of food that could be cooked within the pressure cooker complete with the cooking times.

Wow, I was blown away by the cooking times for some of the foods. Some of those items used to take me hours to complete, not so with a pressure cooker. For example basmati rice takes one minute to make. Boneless chicken breasts take four to five minutes! Four to five minutes, oh my that’s fast!

So if you want to check out pressure cooking times, definitely look at this site.

While browsing through this informative site, I thought about Suituapui. He left the below comment on my post about Siga Wot, Ethiopian Beef Stew. It made me smile…

15 minutes!!! That would take hours over the gas stove…and the meat would still be as tough as leather…and many many hours if using the slow cooker. Hmmm…I must look for a small one, if not here…maybe when I hop over to Kuala Lumpur again.

Based on his comment above, he might be blown away by the limited cook time on some of these dishes, and purchase his own. Even a multi-tasker like me, would appreciate not having to constantly watch something since that time can be spent doing other things.

I instantly thought of this scripture passages that  he’d linked too in one of his blog posts…

Luke 10:38-42

38 Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

New American Standard Bible

I’ve always loved this passage, I’m definitely more of a “Mary” than a “Martha”. At times we need to relax and spend time more time with those we love, the other stuff can wait.

Admittedly, my reasons for wanting Suituapui to get a pressure cooker are a bit selfish. You see, I truly enjoy Arthur’s site since it opens a window to some amazing foods I’ve never heard about.

He’s a great virtual host and is an incredible source of inspiration, not only with the food he prepares, but also his amazing relationship with his daughter.

As suspected, my Presto 8 qt. Pressure Cooker makes meat extremely tender. I didn’t taste it, but my  daughter and father told me it was tender.

A few hours ago, I made Siga Wot for both of them. My mother is working so I made enough for my father. I cut the beef into cubes and trimmed off the fat; there wasn’t much to trim. I also added tomatoes, garlic, basil, herbal tea and a variety of spices and herbs.

Before I added all the ingredients, I seared the beef in a bit of olive oil (to lock in the juices.) I wanted the beef cubes to be moist and tender. I used my brand-new 8 qt. pressure cooker!  Once I’d finished searing the beef, I added the remaining ingredients, and closed the lid so the pressure cooking could begin. I’m still new to making anything besides dried beans in a pressure cooker, so there’s a lot to learn. I referred to the included booklet to see how long I needed to pressure cook the beef.

Total cook time was fifteen minutes. I took off the pressure cooker lid, after the pressure had been released and saw this… as you can see there is a lot of liquid! I imagine this would make a nice  beef stock, if you didn’t want to use the liquid with your stew.

My daughter and father said this turned out very well. I must say it did smell delicious! It was simple to make, delicious, according to them, and definitely nutritious! Sure I’m vegan, but I do take the time to prepare non-vegan/vegetarian meals for my loved ones. Why? I want to make sure they are eating healthy foods also.

Besides this dish, there was also Tikil Gomen (Ethiopian Cabbage dish) which was made yesterday. Guess what? That dish tasted even better today! You know how that is, some dishes taste even better once it has marinated. Additionally, there were garbanzo beans. I’d made those in the Pressure Cooker yesterday.

I’ll definitely write a post about my Presto 8 qt. Pressure Cooker after I have had the chance to use it for a while. Thus far, I’m extremely impressed since it greatly reduces the cook time of the variety of foods I’ve prepared. Although I’ve only had it one day, I’ve already made a lot of foods with my pressure cooker.

Recently I’ve been craving African food! African cuisine is something I prepare several times monthly. When I had the site Vegan Momma, one of the posts that received the most hits was an African peanut soup that I’d made. My goodness, was that good.

There are different African cuisines that I want to prepare; Egyptian, Kenyan etc.,  but top on the list is Ethiopian cuisine.

An explosion of flavors just waiting to be devoured! But I must admit, the idea of eating food with your hands is a bit interesting… of course, my inner germaphobe, is trying not to think about the other people sharing the meal with me, since they meal is typically scooped with injera bread. But… If I keep those who partake of it simple such as just sharing with my daughter… then I won’t be repulsed by the thought.

The great thing about having such a diverse group of friends who also love to cook, means I get to taste meals like they were prepared in the originating country and since I’m open-minded to trying different  cuisines, I don’t miss out on some truly delicious cuisine.

I just checked Amazon, and it shows my Presto 8 qt. Pressure Cooker has been delivered, so when I arrive home, I do believe I’ll make some Ethiopian dish later today.

Thus far, I must say that I’m pleased with my cleansing process...

I haven’t changed the way I eat, but I have introduced herbs, enemas and various other items that are specifically focused on bowel care. You know something? I always found it a bit strange that bowel health wasn’t talked about openly. The primary function of the colon is to reabsorb nutrients, along with water, into our bodies. Ever wonder what happens if our digestive system isn’t working correctly? If we aren’t experiencing proper elimination, an impacted bowl can lead to a variety of issues such as constipation, hemorrhoids, ulcerative colitis and colon cancer.

I can’t help but think that a lot of the bowel issues that many experience could be avoided if more would just be open about it. Proper bowel care is a topic discussed in our household armed with the information I’m hoping, as my daughter gets older, she will continue to make choices that will improve her bowel health.

Hopefully later this week, I’ll have a chance to write about using enemas/colonics to improve your overall health…

Bowel health isn’t an embarrassing topic for me. I learned about it’s importance from my own mother and my grandmother (father’s mom.)

As I’ve mentioned numerous times on this site, I’m not a fan of canned beans. In my opinion, they don’t taste as good as cooking them myself. My first preference, is cooking freshly shelled beans from our garden, but if that’s not an option, I’ll always choose dried beans. Since I don’t always have time for the preparation that can sometimes go into cooking dried beans, I usually cook my beans in large batches.

Personally, the cooking time, is the only part that I’m not always thrilled about when cooking my dried beans. A pressure cooker would speed things up significantly, since it drastically reduces the cooking time of a variety of foods, but I don’t want to be lugging out my heavy 23 qt. stainless steel pressure cooker every time I want to cook my dried beans or some other dish!  That pressure cooker’s only job is to can the produce I gather from the garden.

You know what? I’ve been saying, I was going to purchase a small sized pressure cooker for years, but I never got around to purchasing one until now…

A few moments ago, I (finally) ordered a much smaller sized pressure cooker which makes it more suitable for preparing a typical meal. I decided on the Presto 8 quart stainless steel pressure cooker.

What I do like about this pressure cooker is that it’s not too small (such as a 4 qt.) since I prefer cooking a large amount of dried beans at a time, but still much smaller than my regular 23 qt. pressure cooker. Based on the reviews, The Presto 8 qt. pressure cooker is a “no-frills” pressure cooker; but it still gets the job done.

I’m looking forward to using it, and reducing the cooking time for some of the foods I prepare by 60 – 70%.

Tomorrow,  my daughter and  will be stopping by the store so I can purchase a variety of bulk dried beans. It seems I’m running out of most of my favorite beans; black beans, black eyed peas, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, etc.,

Satisfied with my purchase?

Is the purchase worth it? I would think so, since it’ll drastically reduce the cook time needed for grains, legumes, beans and many other types of foods that take a long time to process. Which means saving me money since I won’t be using the stove for longer periods of time. For example, garbanzo beans normally take me over an hour to cook. In a pressure cooker, it takes about fifteen minutes.

A few minutes ago, I stumbled upon this vintage ad for Presto Pressure Cookers.