Under Pressure

Well, I finally got a pressure cooker.

I was hesitant, of course, because of the horror stories people hear about old pressure cookers exploding, and sometimes, believe it or not, I am kind of accident-prone.

BUT we got one that has a bunch of safety features that make it impossible to open while there is still pressure in the cooker. So we got it. We ordered it (a Fagor Duo 8 quart, in case you were wondering) on Amazon, of course, and it was supposed to arrive as early as today, Friday. However, when I got home last night, there it was, sitting on our kitchen island in all its new and boxed glory! I had every intention of doing this test I found online to familiarize myself with the cooker, how long it takes to do things, etc. But I decided I wanted brown rice and scrambled eggs for dinner (a delicious combination with soy sauce, similar to fried rice), so, I made pressure cooker brown rice. It was a success!! Definitely not as mushy as when I make it on the stove, although not quite as good as the one time I made it in my rice cooker. With a little tweaking, I'm sure it'll be one of my regular recipes.

One of the main things I will want to make in it is stock/broth (beef, chicken, vegetable) because, as I stated before, my husband and I are hippies. He's much more of a hippie than me, and does not want to consume any store-bought broth/stock anymore. Hence the pressure cooker. I made vegetable broth in a stock pot Monday afternoon, but from now on, it'll be pressure cooker broth/stock all the way! I think it's going to be awesome, once I get the hang of it. Tonight I am going to try tackling the beef stock... wish me luck!

Where have you been?

That's what you might be wondering. Well... Tuesday I was home sick. Mainly sinus stuff. I was cleaning in the morning and lazing in the afternoon. I don't know what happened Wednesday and Thursday, but here I am now!

Monday night I made minestrone. My goal was to have it taste like Olive Garden's (my second favorite soup in the world - the top spot being held by the vegetable barley soup at Vince's Spaghetti in California. Man that is the BEST) and although it was pretty good (Adam loved it), it still wasn't quite right. I think it needed to be more tomato-y. Then again, I'm like a tomato fanatic, so... :)

Also, Adam and I beat Donkey Kong on the Wii! Really really beat it! But now we are so "Donkey Kong" wired, we tried to go back and play Super Mario Bros. Wii and we are not that good. We've beat all the normal levels in Mario, which means that at one point we were pretty awesome. But now... it's going to take some un-DK-ification before we can rock Super Mario again.

So... all that to say, my life has not been too exciting. I have some more ideas for upcoming posts, so keep your eyes peeled.