TheBanyanTree: instant pot

[Teague, Julie Anna]

I forget that present husband is of a different stripe than past husband (may he rest in peace), and thus I need to watch what I say because he listens closely and tends to make things happen.  A wonderful trait, absolutely, but not if you are someone like me who daydreams aloud about things that may only be half-heartedly desired.  We'd discussed, over the past few weeks, the idea of the Instant Pot, i.e., the modern, non-exploding pressure cooker.  They are suddenly all the rage.  My grandma used the old kind quite a bit.  I remember the behemoth gray pot, her strapping on the lid in what that looked like some kind of bomb assembly. The rattling and the big pressure gauge and the nervous checking.  But what she made in it I don't remember.  Roast and potatoes vaguely come to mind.  I can't recall another meal that might've come out of that thing.  She used it mostly for canning green beans.  I do remember that while she was an otherwise great cook, her roast was a bland pretender to my mother's.  Mom cooked beef roast the old fashioned way, in the oven.  The NY Times food section has been on an Instant-Pot-article bender since before Christmas.  I'd been looking at recipes but had as much as talked myself out of the thing.  Not the least of my concerns is that I now have the tiniest of kitchens with limited storage.  I do like the idea of getting a healthy meal done in 30 minutes because lord knows that time is something we are always short of, and a quick salad when it's below zero outside does not make anyone here happy.  But most of the things Instant Pots are best at did not seem to be the things we eat, in general--spare ribs, pork roasts, thick beefy stews. All good, but we don't eat that much meat.  Or, I don't eat (or cook) that much meat.  Husband would eat that much meat in a heartbeat, right up to the point where he ceased to have a heartbeat.  But we are already in a polygamous marriage-me, husband, his grill, his smoker.  He doesn't need another platform on which to sacrifice dead animals.

So anyway, adoring husband and I were discussing Instant Pots and their possibilities in, what I thought, was a more or less hypothetical way.  But husband, anxious to make my every dream a reality (Damn him!  Where did I FIND this guy?) came home with an Instant Pot last night, and now I must either learn to use it or return it before I even take it out of the box. I'm sort of interested in the yogurt function because I eat a lot of greek yogurt.  But how to make it thick and coconutty like Chobani that already comes in convenient little plastic containers (which are polluting the earth...guilt) and contains too much sugar (oy)?   Can I make my own pasta sauce in record time?  That would be a good thing, no?  Tomato-y, peppery, spicy Shakshuka with eggs in ten minutes would be a pleasant surprise.  Of course, it takes only 30 minutes on the stovetop, and I can watch the eggs closely.  I have it--beans from dried beans rather than canned beans!  Delicious, spicy black beans! Lentils! Great Northerns! Chickpeas! That would be lovely, in limited quantities: we're old so too many beans can be deadly.

I ask myself, WWJD? What would Julia do.  Julia Child has long been a hero of mine.  Everyone should read her books-she's such a fantastic human being.  I heard an interview with her once in which the interviewer was trying, with leading questions, to get Julia to "poo-poo" fancy-schmancy kitchen gadgets as unnecessary.  Julia said while of course one doesn't need them to cook, why not get them and try them if you want them!  Have fun! Try new things!  Julia was not one for poo-pooing anything except apologizing for a dish that didn't come out perfectly.  Never, in Julia's view, does the cook apologize.  Just serve, poor more wine, and trust that friends love us even for the occasional bad dinner!  I love Julia.  I think she would approve of giving the Instant Pot and drive around the block.  I guess it's off to see if I can find recipes!

Julie