I was recently gifted the Instant Pot Duo ~ well, 3 months have past since I was gifted it but that’s another story.
The Instant Pot looks more complicated than my rice cooker but so far it appears to be easy to use.
I did have to deal with a psychological block: when we were at a friend’s for lunch a few years back, she had used a pressure cooker to make her lentil beans and while we were waiting for them to cook, the pressure cooker blew up in her kitchen and we spent lots of time cleaning lentils from the walls, cabinets, ceiling and floors.
So ~ with that small (uh, large) remembrance in mind, I stealthily tiptoed around the Instant Pot making sure I read all the directions.
There is one very small piece of instruction that I believe they left out ~ well, I can’t find it in my User Manual. When you start the Instant Pot (once everything is in the pot and the lid is securely closed), it has to warm up before it actually starts. The “Keep Warm” button was lit when I started my recipe and it didn’t turn off until the Instant Pot reached its desired temperature to begin.
That made me a little nervous because I assumed I had done something wrong but two recipes later and that seems to be a pattern ~ well, okay, two times is not much of a pattern but it’s what I’ve got right now.
The first recipe I made was one I found on the internet for a beef stew. In our household the reviews were mixed “it was okay” to “it was very good.” Of course, when I make a new recipe I usually introduce it to the family with “you will love this!” I find the brain has a funny way of enveloping what it’s told although quite honestly, my husband’s brain is a little harder to deal with (laughing).
I have to say that I deviated a little from the original beef stew recipe by Damn Delicious. I didn’t add Worcestershire sauce, caraway seeds nor celery. I tend to like my soups less complicated. I also replaced the all purpose flour with tapioca flour (a habit from my paleo days). In spite of that it came out great!
Looking scrumptious, eh?
