An Instant Pot Means an (Almost) Instant Supper

I’ve been collecting kitchen gadgets for the past few years: The largest food processor available. A heavy-duty stand mixer. Pampered Chef’s Rockcrok slow cooker. So you know I jumped on the pressure cooker craze, even before the Instant Pot became a thing. Now I have two of them: a 6-quart Cuisinart and an 8-quart Instant Pot. I’m even starting to think I need the 3-quart Instant Pot to cook side dishes while the other two are full.

I could talk all day about how much I love my pressure cookers, but rather than making you read for hours, I’ll just tell you about tonight’s supper.

I’ve been fighting a migraine all day, and trying to get some work done as well. When I looked up and saw it was 6 o’clock and realized I hadn’t even thought about what to make for supper, I didn’t panic. I pulled out a pound of ground beef from the freezer and put it on the trivet that comes with the cooker, poured in a cup of water, put the lid on, and locked it. Then I closed the vent, set the timer for eight minutes, and went back to my comfy couch.

It took about 10 minutes for the cooker to come up to pressure before the timer started counting down. Not once did I get up to stir or turn the meat over like I would have if I had been using the stovetop or microwave. Instead, I sat there until the timer went off. Then I carefully opened the vent to let the pressure off. When it was safe, I took off the lid, poured out the water, and turned on the sauté feature to brown the meat. When it was all cooked, I added some taco seasoning, tomato sauce, beef broth, and pasta.

The mixture cooked for another five minutes, just long enough for me to heat up some frozen cheese bread. When the timer beeped again, I released the pressure and took off the lid. A quick stir and it was ready to eat.

A home-cooked meal in about 30 minutes. It’s easy and it tastes good. Plus, we have leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

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