As I told you a couple of days ago, we bought a Presto 23 quart pressure cooker/canner that arrived two days ago.
I was intimidated, thinking back to when my mom used one years and years ago and we kept hearing that people blew up their kitchens, were badly injured, etc.
I decided, though, that if I’m really successful with our raised bed square foot gardening efforts, I should be able to can veggies. My husband was more interested in canning meat and fish. This huge pressure cooker/canner can handle anything, enabling us to can whatever we’d like safely.
We did a trial run with water only to see how things worked the day we got it.
Yesterday we cooked a beef roast with potatoes for my husband and broccoli for me.
We found a good recipe for which we had everything except raw carrots. It said to cook the meat and onions for 30 minutes, let the pressure go down so that we could lift the lid and add veggies, and then bring it up to pressure again and cook for 15 more minutes.
I have to admit that for much of this time my heart was beating like a drum in my chest. I read and reread the directions, then followed them to the letter. I was afraid to open the pot to add the veggies, but made myself do it anyway. When things were finished, we let the cooker lose pressure at its own speed. Nothing blew up. All worked as it should, making me feel a bit stupid about worrying.
My idea of throwing broccoli in there was a mistake, however. Even at only 15 minutes, it became part of the ‘broth.’ The roast was juicy and tender, but a bit chewy for our tastes. The potatoes were delicious, my husband said.
The biggest problem we had was moving the hot, cooked food and broth from the cooker to somewhere we could cut up the meat and serve the veggies. We ended up with my husband tipping the cooker while I held a roasting pan under it, moving things very slowly and carefully from one to the other.
The final decision was that I really like the idea of pressure cooking and canning, but don’t want to fight with such a huge cooker for everyday things. I’ll use this one to learn – and do – boiling water and pressure canning of all kinds of things from our garden, Farmer’s Markets, or store sales during the year.
Last night we researched and ordered an Instant Pot, 5 quart size, to use on a regular basis.
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