Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

[Jamestown1630]

I think we’ve only ever done two or three things in a crock pot that really turned out well; my crock pot has gotten the most use as a way to carry to a party and warm up dishes that have already been cooked otherwise. But one of the things we’ve found that the crock pot does pretty well is pulled pork. (Don't laugh, Texans - we're currently apartment dwellers ;-)

We’ve tried several recipes that turned out OK, but I wanted to make pulled pork in the crockpot like the Carnitas that we get at Chipotle (again, don't laugh! I just like it). A few months ago, I ordered what looks like a lifetime supply of Juniper Berries, because someone online had insisted that they were the key – but for us, they were not; and now I’m stuck with a huge vacuum-packed jar of berries that I’ll probably never use up in the remaining time that the Lord has allotted me.

But: I think I found the recipe last weekend. My husband signed up to receive email recipes from Cooks Country, and a recent one was for ‘Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas’; we tried it, and it was excellent. The secret seems to be citrus, which you don’t really taste AS citrus; but somehow, it adds that elusive 'je ne sais quoi'.

A slight variation of the recipe is available at the Mels Kitchen Cafe website; the Cooks Country recipe suggested crisping the final product in a fry pan, but Mels Kitchen does it under the broiler, and I think that makes a better product:

https://www.melskitchencafe.com/slow-cooker-pork-carnitas

After about a year of ‘window-shopping’ pressure cooker options, we have decided to purchase an Instant Pot. We are going for the 8-quart ‘Duo’, because that seems to offer the most versatility. I became interested in this product because of all the reviews on how well it does hard-boiled eggs (makes them very easy to peel, even very fresh eggs) bone broth, and yogurt-making. Husband is interested in the fast-cooking of meats.

Do any of you who have an Instant Pot have favorite recipes/uses for it?

-JT

[Yardstick]

Will be interested in your results.

BTW, I just watched the Easy Post video you posted a few posts back. That is essentially a steaming method which is another method that Kenji Lopez-Alt has tested extensively and also recommends. These various methods all result in easy peeling for the same reason: they apply rapid heat to the egg compared to the typical cold start where the eggs come up to boiling temp slowly with the water. The rapid heating makes the membrane adhere to the shell rather than the white, and that is the key.

Of course when you steam in a pressure cooker the temp will be higher than 212 degrees (the normal boiling point of water) and so the eggs will cook faster.

[Yardstick]

Easy Post = Easy Pot

[Yardstick]

Doh!

Easy Pot = Instant Pot

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks for the info. I do a lot of deviled eggs these days (low carb, and the husband loves them) so I’m trying to find the easiest way.

[V K Lee]

Choking! Even the softest of tid-bits can cause you to choke. Once choked on a Thompson seedless grape. After attempting to give myself a Heimlich maneuver several times, eventually it came back. How many times and how it was done is and will be a mystery, but it worked and able to speak of it still.

Baked on Grease and gunk. Purchased a couple of bottles of spray ‘stuff’ ten years ago. Used both cleaning the range of the sweet lady who lived across the road. After years of use, the top and sides of the range had grease which seemed to be a part of the enamel. Beautiful retro 1940-50s range (for those who appreciate that era, a true ‘find’) Anyway, now can’t remember the brand of the product. Will call my sis tomorrow and find the name. Need to purchase another bottle anyway. It worked really well. That baked on grease just never had a chance. Works wonders on glass cookware, too.

While attempting to search this evening for the brand name of this product, this site was found. Thought you might find something here which might be of help
EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE
https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/home-and-family/everyday-cheapskate-greatest-hits-2016/

[Yardstick]

Yum, deviled eggs. I can eat them like candy...

[CottonBall]

No, blindness is a possibility but not a for sure outcome. I was a preemie and as a result, I am severely myopic. There are lots of potential problems that go with that – retina detachment, glaucoma , strabismus,…I have a problem getting a good prescription, it seems. It can be done but I need to keep going back and having them fix it. I had strabismus surgery a couple years ago and that made a huge difference.

I think I have the bad luck with having the worlds most incompetent optometrists for a while. Actually I think all optometrist are. They are trained to do things only one way. And not to think for themselves. They get to put on a white coat and get called doctors and they get swelled heads. After I had very high prisms and my glasses and they weren’t working at all, I had two optometrist ask me to leave their office after I kept going back For them to fix their lousy prescription.They charged me $1000 for glasses and thought I should’ve been happy with 20/60 vision. Luckily for me, by that time. Had enough and I was ready to fight back. I didn’t just walk away thinking it was the best that could be done. I kept pushing. So two asked me to leave. Another I just asked for my money back. And then I went to an ophthalmologist whose first words were “why haven’t you had the surgery for this?” I had no clue there was a surgery! Apparently the idiot optometrists never went to any of their update classes. The surgery had been around for three decades!

Anyway, now I go strictly to ophthalmologists for my prescriptions. And they handle it completely different. The prism test and the reading test optometrists use are woefully inaccurate. The ophthalmologists have a completely different way of measuring it to get the best fit for the person. I feel blessed to have incredible ophthalmologist here, as well as very well-trained opticians.

So I’m not complaining about my vision. At least not much :-) for today, I am grateful to see as well as I can. I really don’t care about my far vision much, 20/30 is fine with me. I need to have that another to get a drivers license here. I might even be 20/20. But what I really love is being able to read! They optometrist gave me very very underpowered reading in my glasses, and it was a struggle to even read medium sized print. Now I can read everything that’s on a coupon :-) all they had to do was increase the add power, hardly rocket science! Anyway, I was trying to do software engineering at the time and trying to read print on my desk as well as the computer screen was a struggle. My eyes hurt and I had headaches every day. When I think back, I went through all that for nothing!

Well, no trials are for nothing. God plans these things. I wouldn’t be so grateful today if I didn’t have those experiences. And I know I have the potential for retinal problems and other things. But for today, it is all good! So you can see, my teeth are really secondary. Although any kind of pain is hard to take! If I had a bad toothache today, it would be a different story :-)

It does seem that the longer you wear your dentures the more they would rub and hurt. So it’s a great thing that that is not the case! It sounds like you are adapting admirably.

[Hoffer Rand]

The Insta-pots come with pressure cooker lids. You can buy glass slow cooker type lids if you don’t want to deal with the big, lockdown type lid for doing slow cooker function cooking.

[Jamestown1630]

Yes, we saw that and a few other things that you can get to augment it. We’ll probably get another steel liner, too; I’m not real comfortable using Pyrex in it.

[V K Lee]

The name of the OTC product - it was found at Wally World.

Dawn Power Degreaser
https://www.google.com/search?q=Dawn+Power+degreaser&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYqKTG6pjXAhUI8WMKHQTKAHsQsxgIJw&biw=905&bih=533

In the past ten years, understand it is no longer on WM shelves but must be ordered, shipped,and delivered or picked up It does work harder than any fairy godmother. Worth the extra work to acquire? I would say so...but that’s just me.

[Jamestown1630]

Well, I did the boiled egg experiment tonight. I did 5 eggs in the new, arrived-today Instant Pot, according to the instructions I’ve seen on several websites – pressure cook for 6 minutes, put the eggs in cold water for about 15.

The eggs were very easy to peel, and it was obvious that the inner shell membrane was not sticking to the egg itself. I got perfect boiled, peeled eggs, and was very impressed.

But I felt I had better try the stove-top hot-start method to compare, so I did two eggs the Kenji Lopez-Alt  way: brought water to boil, put eggs in, lowered to simmer for 11 minutes, then into the ice water.

And I was even more impressed – with these eggs, it was easier to start the peeling process, and the peel came of in much bigger pieces.

I’m thrilled – no more pock-marked eggs. Thank you for the tip – I don’t remember catching this idea in a previous thread, or had forgotten and never tried it; and thank Instant Pot! While my experiement wasn’t at all precise and ‘scientific’, I was satisfied with the proof.

The only slight issue I had is that with both methods the eggs could have cooked just a little longer to get the yolk the way I like. But all of them had beautiful, soft butter-yellow yolks, tender whites, and no green/grey discoloration around the yolk.

(Of course, I have to worry: did I just have a really good batch of eggs? I’ve never had such good luck with boiled eggs! They were jumbos, bought on Saturday, so I’m assuming they were relatively fresh, which makes it even more impressive...)

[Yardstick]

Very interesting. Thanks for the report. Those are good results!

The thing about store bought eggs is that by law grocers can keep them on the shelf for up to 30 days. So even if you buy a dozen and cook them immediately, you’re not necessarily dealing with fresh eggs.

The true test would be to get hold of some farm fresh eggs and see how those turn out. The other option is to look at the date code on the carton of store bought eggs. By law it has to be stamped on there although it can be tricky to find. Also, normally they’ll stash the freshest eggs towards the back or up on a higher shelf so you might have to search a little bit for them.

But I’m pretty confident that the result you got with both the Instant Pot and with Lopez-Alt is representative of what you can expect even with very fresh eggs. It’s super cool to be able to boil up a batch of eggs knowing they’ll be easy peelers.

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks; since the store we got them from is very small and restocks constantly, I’m assuming they were pretty fresh. Anyway, I’m tickled with both methods.

I have a question about the Instant Pot - when you’re operating it manually, does the cooking time change with the amount of food, volume-wise, that you have in there? For instance, if 5 eggs cook at 6 minutes, would 12 eggs take the same amount of time? (Obviously, I’m still figuring out exactly how the thing works...)

[Yardstick]

I don’t own an Instant Pot but a google search popped up two ladies who cooked a dozen eggs in 7 and 8 minutes using the high pressure setting, and another who did them using low pressure in 13 minutes. (Apparently only the newer model Instant Pots have a low pressure setting.) Based on this, it seems like the time doesn’t vary directly with the amount of food. This means the pot must do a pretty good job of regulating the cooking temperature so it stays fairly constant regardless of the mass being cooked.

[Jamestown1630]

Yes; it seems that the difference is in how long it takes to get up to pressure - the more food in there, the longer it takes to get going.

[Yardstick]

Right, and apparently the extra ramping up time adds a minute or two to cook twice as many eggs but doesn’t actually double the time. No doubt that the more you cook with the pot, the more you’ll get a feel for how to adjust the cooking time to suit the amount.

[Jamestown1630]

It’s got lots of buttons ;-)

Fortunately it’s pretty straightforward and intuitive.

We did Italian sausage and peppers last night; they turned out ok, but I like them better when husband does them in the oven. I want to try a chicken, and beans, next.

[Tammy8]

I love my Instant Pot, and the longer I have it the better I like it. My favorite thing is to cook frozen chicken breasts; I can do a 3# bag and they turn out moist, easy to dice or shred for many recipes. I try to stand them on end with big end down, some bigger ones have to go in sideways though. I mix a little over a cup of water and whatever seasonings I decide to use then pour it over them and cook. The cooked chicken can be just eaten; it is not brown of course but my grand kids love it. You can shred or dice the meat, I like to use it for Mexican food recipes, pot pie, ETC. Or cube it cold for great chicken salad. The juice left in the pot is great broth to use in recipes too.

Some things I make; pulled pork, roast, swiss steak, beans, killer mashed potatoes, boiled eggs...I haven’t had mine long and am still looking for ideas.

[Yardstick]

I guess everything done in the Instant Pot is basically being boiled or steamed. It’s a wet sort of heat versus the relatively dry heat of an oven. I could see some foods being really suited for that and others not so much. Seems like beans would be a perfect candidate since it would greatly shorten the cook time with probably no real tradeoff. Will a whole chicken fit in the pot and do you brown it first on the stovetop?

[Jamestown1630]

You can get a small to medium chicken in there; and it has a saute function, so you can brown things in the pot before setting it up to cook.

It came with a book with lots of recipes, including several Indian-style ones; and one for chocolate cheesecake!