Blast from the Past: Pressure Cooking

 

I know, I say “pressure cooker” and you think (1) dangerous explosions, and/or (2) gray, flabby, over-cooked food.

It’s true, I witnessed a spectacular pressure cooker explosion back in 1968. Aunt Dee left me and my cousin Judy home alone, with vague instructions to “watch the pressure cooker”.

What’s to watch? We watched cartoons instead. Two hours later the pressure cooker went “BOOM”! We ran into the kitchen to find it had blown its lid, bashing a cantaloupe-sized hole in the ceiling and splattering green beans all over the walls.

Judy & I were in deep doo-doo for that one.

So I never considered trying a pressure cooker myself, until I moved up here to the high mountain desert. At 7,000 feet we have some unusual cooking “challenges” – my worst one being that I couldn’t cook beans. Seriously! I could not make a decent pot of beans up here.

My neighbors all advised pressure cooking to solve the high-altitude bean problem. And that’s when I discovered that “modern” pressure cookers are vastly improved over my Aunt Dee’s mid-century model. They’re electric, they’re digital, and they promise explosion-proof operation.

Okay … I decided to try pressure cooking.

After reading the reviews I purchased a Cuisinart CPC-600 1000-Watt 6-Quart Electric Pressure Cooker, shown here.

I’ve used it for almost a year now. And I have to say, this was probably my best purchase of 2010.

 

 

Top 5 Reasons to ♥ Electric Pressure Cookers

1. Dang, they’re fast! I’m talking 10-minute potato soup (although that project did make milk come out its nose), or a 40-minute brisket for 8.

2. They’re programmable. Punch in your settings and walk away (cartoons, anyone?). You don’t have to “watch” them, or adjust the heat, or anything. When the cooking cycle ends, they’ll automatically switch over to Keep Warm mode.

3. Yes, a pressure cooker IS the best way to cook beans. No, repeat NO, pre-soaking needed. And you can season the beans during cooking, even add a little salt, and they’ll STILL cook up beautifully.

4. They don’t heat up the kitchen. This past summer was the hottest of the century, so I really, really appreciated not having to turn on the oven, or even the stove burners, for weeks on end.

5. They don’t use a lot of juice. It’s about the same wattage as a hair dryer, and the actual cooking time is short, so the energy consumption is way less than a standard oven, or even a slow cooker.

Plus there are serendipitous benefits. For example, I’ve discovered that my electric pressure cooker makes the best stocks imaginable – chicken, beef, pork, vegetable, whatever. And it’s now my go-to method for ribs: cook ‘em with pressure, finish them on the grill.

Best Pressure Cooker Cookbooks

I’ve since acquired a number of pressure cooker cookbooks, and of them all I recommend two to get you started:

Victoria Wise’s Pressure Cooker Gourmet

From the first chef at Chez Panisse, this book is all you need to convince unbelievers that you can cook delicious food in a pressure cooker. (I started with her Brined Pork Roast & Figs, a revelation.)

This one’s also available in a Kindle edition.

 

 

Any of Lorna Sass’s pressure cooking cookbooks are great to have on hand, but I especially like her Pressure Perfect: Two Hour Taste in Twenty Minutes Using Your Pressure Cooker. Her substitution charts are pure gold when it’s time to convert your favorite traditional recipes to the pressure cooker.

 

Bon appetit!

--MaggieBelize
Designer, kNotes for kNitters
Creator, Happy Hands Hand Creams for Fiber Artists
Sandia Park, NM

Quick Fix for Canon Pixma ip1500

 

Thought I’d share this quick tip for resetting your Canon Pixma ip1500 printer.

Mine occasionally refuses to power up, especially after a power outage, and I’ve found this weird little routine that will fix it:

How To Re-set a Canon Pixma Printer

1. Unplug the power cord.
2. Open front of printer.
3. Hold down the Power button.
4. Plug in printer (still holding down Power button).
5. Close the printer cover (still holding down Power button).
6. Now release the Power button.

Awkward, yes? But effective!

--MaggieBelize
Designer, kNotes for kNitters
Creator, Happy Hands Hand Creams for Fiber Artists
Sandia Park, NM

Can You Freeze Guacamole?

There was some discussion on the Albuquerque City-Data forum recently as to whether one can successfully freeze guacamole.

After repeated experiments, my opinion is no, you can’t freeze guacamole – but you can freeze mashed avocado pulp, then gussy it up into guacamole at serving time.

Is frozen pulp as good as fresh? No, of course not. Is it better than nothing? Yes!

I used to do this all the time in Belize, where avocados ripen all at once in August & September. For two delirious months we’d be up to our elbows in buttery, ripe avocados … then we’d have to do without for the rest of the year. Wah!

So I would gather up all the ripe avocados I couldn’t eat then and there without exploding, and in a single marathon session I’d peel, pit and mash them with lashings of freshly squeezed lime juice, about a teaspoonful per avocado (count the pits). Here in the States, lemon juice works too.

(Despite what Diana Kennedy, the maven of Mexican cooking, says about this, I like the flavor of lime juice in my guacamole.)

Without adding anything more to the pulp, not even salt, I’d measure it into vacuum seal freezer bags, one to two cups per bag, and freeze it.

I strongly recommend the “suck ‘n seal” packaging method for this project. But whatever freezer bag you use, you want to remove as much air as possible. Oxidation is avocado’s enemy, turning exposed pulp an unattractive brown. The citric acid in the lime or lemon juice also helps preserve the color.

Depending on your freezer temperature and the bags you use, avocado pulp will keep nicely anywhere from two to six months in the freezer.

When it’s time to make the guacamole, first thaw the sealed bag of pulp overnight in the fridge. If you’re in a hurry, you can submerge your freezer bag in a bowl of warm water; but I don’t recommend defrosting it in the microwave. (I tried that once, and it got ugly.)

Once thawed, you’ll notice your avocado pulp may be a bit watery. Just punch a little hole in the freezer bag and drain off any excess liquid.

Then de-bag the pulp and mix in whatever fresh fixings you like – chopped tomatoes and Serrano chiles, minced onion, cilantro, etc. Salt to taste, maybe add a pinch of sugar, and serve.

Voila! Guacamole on demand.

--MaggieBelize
Designer, kNotes for kNitters
Have you seen my “Second Story”?
Vintage Knitting & Fiber Arts Patterns

I Love Things That Work …

As opposed to things that don’t! When I shell out my cash on a craft gadget or an exotic food or a miracle cosmetic, and it actually works, I’m thrilled! And often surprised, too.

Today I am very happy with my new ribbon organizer.

I know, organizing ribbons sounds like a simple thing. But it’s not! If you’ve seen the fiber care tags I make & sell in my Etsy store, you’ll notice that each and every one is tied off with a pretty fabric ribbon.

Like this, for example:

Most of the tag designs I make require a different color ribbon to match … so the upshot is, I currently have over 50 rolls of quarter-inch ribbon that have to be stored somehow, somewhere.

Stored, that is, where I can see all the colors I have – but where the cats won’t find them. (My cats really like ribbons.)

And I thought it would be nice if I could easily pull out a roll to use, and just as easily put it back when I’m done … that’s the kind of convenience I need to keep my studio clutter under control.

After looking at various models of ribbon organizers, and ruling out any with spindles that I’d have to take apart to add or remove rolls, any that let ribbon ends dangle temptingly in cat’s paw range, and any that required stacking, I found the only one that works for me and my 50+ rolls: the Simply Renee Clip It Up Ribbon Organizer.

This wall-mounted, trough-like rack is three feet long, and 5-1/4” deep. Today it’s holding 52 rolls of variously sized ribbon in my craft room.

Since that should be enough ribbon for anyone, I’ve sworn I’m only going to refill by attrition.

I am also very pleased with the 40 clips that hook onto the bottom rail. You can use these clips to suspend scraps, or bags of ribbons and fibers. The clips were an unexpected bonus! You can hang all sorts of odds and ends from them.

There are two scissor-holders, one at either end of the rack. I’ve got a pair of scissors in one slot, and a paper punch in the other.

And it comes with a handy ruler decal, which I applied to the front left. Nice!

You could optionally feed the ends of the ribbons out over the lip of the trough, but I decided against that. The cats, doncha know.

Okay, so this gizmo wasn’t cheap, but I did have a coupon that took almost 50% off the total. That helped!

Quite possibly you could rig up your own homemade version, starting with maybe a length of gutter from the hardware store? And I’m thinking about adding a flip-up lid from some kind of clear plastic material to keep the dust out.

But the best thing is that this gizmo works really, really well.

--MaggieBelize
Designer, kNotes for kNitters
Sandia Park, NM