Frugal Kitchens 101 - Pressure Cookers

Pressure cooking is the old fashioned way of putting good food on the table quickly preceding microwave ovens and take-out. A pressure cooker is a specialized cooking vessel that instead of cooking at 212ºF under pressure it cooks the food at 240ºF. What this means is the food cooks a lot quicker but because a moist heat is used the food is moist and tender. From start to finish a small roast can easily be cooked to moist and tender in less than 30 minutes! Unlike a slow cooker the meat can be browned in the same pot it will be cooked in and because of the greatly reduced cooking time you can easily pop thawed meat in the pressure canner when you get home from work with it being ready to enjoy less than 30 minutes later with minimal prep work.

In terms of energy usage my large slow cooker costs 4¢ per hour to run so for most dishes that would average 24¢ to 32¢. Using the large burner (2,000 ) W at a cost of 24¢ per hour the cost for the meat (20 minutes) would come out to 8¢. Now the cost savings is not as important as the kWh savings. In short the pressure cooker is considerably more eco-friendly than the slow cooker.

I have 2 pressure cookers (Jasi 6 qt, Fagor 4 qt) and 2 pressure canners (22 qt) that can be used for large batch pressure cooking. Now before I go any further all pressure canners can be used as a pressure cooker but all pressure cookers cannot be used as pressure canners. There are more details on this in this blogs archives. Pressure cookers are classified as 1^st or 2^nd generation depending on their regulator design. My Jasi is a 1^st generation pressure cooker that uses a weight as a regulator. I like it because of the size and the fact the weight makes an audible signal as the cooking progresses. The downside to the Jasi is it is aluminum so cannot be used for acidic foods. The Fagor is a 2^nd generation pressure cooker with the regulator built into the handle. It is smaller but it is stainless steel so can be used for acidic foods. I'm used to pressure cookers with the weighted regulators so can tell by the noise they make how things are progressing. The Fagor is pretty much quiet so that took a bit of getting used to.

A pressure cooker will cost you anywhere from $20 to $200 for a dual pressure cooker/canner and then some but if you are looking at a pressure cooker only you should be able to buy a nice stainless steel one for under $60. So figure on the $20 to $60 mark for pressure cooker only.

Tips for buying a pressure cooker:

• buy a larger size than you think you will use as a pressure cooker can only be filled ⅔ full
• stainless steel costs a bit more but gives greater versatility in that you can cook acidic foods
• whether the regulator is separate (1^st generation) or in the handle (2^nd generation) is purely a personal choice
• watch for the December sales meant for Christmas shopping; some can be as much as half off
• a rack is a really nice extra; if your pressure cooker does not come with a rack see if you can find a small cake cooling rack that will fit your pressure cooker
  

Enjoy!

Pressure Cooker Pulled Pork

The myth perpetuated by the food industry persists that cooking from scratch takes a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately it is a myth that serves to rid you pockets of hard earned money, discourage you from cooking from scratch all in the interests of lining the pockets of the food industry. The kids were telling us that right now there is not a lot of free time so they want good meals that don't take a lot of time to prepare. The emphasis is on good meals so one kitchen tool they rely on is the pressure cooker.

A pressure cooker cooks under 15 lb pressure raising the cooking temperature to 240ºF in a moist environment. Once the food is prepped the lid is put on and the pressure cooker is brought to pressure then allowed to cook at that pressure for the desired period of time. The vessel is then allowed to naturally depressurize or quickly depressurized using the cold water method. The end result is tender meat from even the toughest cuts and fast cooking times. Unlike a slowcooker the meats can be browned first in the same pot and in terms of energy usage the pressure cooker works out to be cheaper.

Pressure Cooker Pulled Pork

The kids put a nice sized, trimmed pork roast into the pressure cooker then brought it to pressure and let it cook for 20 minutes. While the meat was cooking the vegetables were prepared. The green beans and peas were steamed while the cheesy hash browns were bake. Once the meat was finished cooking it took little more than a quick shredding with two forks and stirring in a favourite barbeque sauce for easy yet very tasty pulled pork.

From start to finish it took 30 minutes to get the meal on the table. This is good home cooking from scratch that clearly shows you that home cooking does not need to take a lot of time. It was a gorgeous, home cooked meal well presented and very tasty!

Le Gourmet Chef & Woodman's Food Markets

Road trips are always an opportunity for use to explore which sometimes means taking side trips or little jaunts off of our route. We were making excellent time towards our destination thanks to Lucy the TomTom we borrowed from one of our kids. So we decided to make a couple of stops to do a little shopping.

Le Gourmet Chef

Our first stop was at the Prime Outlets at Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. The outlet is located at 111211 120^th Ave just off of I-294. My husband wanted to check the Nautica outlet so I headed over to Le Gourmet Chef. I love browsing through kitchen stores! Notice the word browsing because I still tend to be quite frugal in my purchases even though there are so many tempting goodies. I splurged on the KitchenAid® food strainer attachment at $49.99 but this will really help me in making sauces by reducing the strain of using the manual food strainer. I also bought a lemon zester and rosette maker but I displayed remarkable restraint at not buying a lot of other really neat kitchen goodies.

Purchases

Our next stop was at Woodman's Food Market located at 2919 N. Lexington Drive in Janesville, Wisconsin. Woodman's is an employee-owned supermarket chain in Wisconsin and northern Illinois. They have thirteen warehouse style stores. These stores are massive in the 200-250,000 square foot range, in comparison to the 50-75,000 square foot size of typical grocery stores. The one we stopped at had to be about 3 times the size of the Sam's Club we shop at. There is no way I could shop this size store on any regular basis. I found it too big, too massive, to over sensory stimulating just too big! I made it through about a third of the store before my husband rescued me.

What I like about stopping at different grocery stores is the variety of foods available. I tend to buy things I can't get at home, regional foods or foods I've seen on the FoodNetwork. When out of Canada I also have to be aware of what I can bring back into Canada. So it really is a very selective type of buying and while I do have a small list there is a bit of impulse buying.

My purchases (pictured): Morton's Tender Quick, pickling lime, rice flour, Thai sweet rice, green goddess deressing 100% pure key lime juice, Tahini and anchovy paste.

Note: The two fry coatings were bought at Cabella's not Woodman's but they insisted on getting into the photo shoot. :)

The Start of Our Recent Road Trip

TA Travel Center
October 2, 2009

In the early morning hours on October 2 my husband and I headed out on a road trip to visit our kids. The trip would take us across three US states into a fourth. We planned on leaving their house early Monday morning heading north for another three days of quality down time before heading home. It was dark and cold as we packed the car with everything we needed for the trip. Included in the packing was a case of home canned foods mainly salsa but a few extras. Crossing the border meant I could not pack the cooler the way I normally would for a longer road trip so no fresh fruits for snacking on. We didn't want to use the percolator for coffee as that would mean having to clean it before going and since there is no coffee shop on our way to the border we opted for stopping at a Timmy's on the American side. Sorry guys, the American Timmy's is not the same as the Canadian ones but the double double really hit the spot!

We do a lot of road trips. One thing that is very seldom part of any road trip is fast food restaurants. We would rather pull into a truck stop. According to my husband the more rigs the better the truck stop. Pictured is the TA Travel Center we stopped at en route. The beauty of truck stops is they are very close to your route so you don't have to go more than about a kilometer out of your way. Getting back on the highway is never a problem either.

Truck stops are usually rather interesting places even for browsing through everything the well decked out trucker or traveler needs to the well supplied variety store offerings. There's always a bargain bin for great deals on books, CDs and videos. The washrooms are always quite clean and if you want a shower or laundry both are usually available something quite useful if you are making a cross country trip. Most offer WiFi although it is not always free. Some of them even have movie hour and an arcade to amuse yourself while catching up on laundry or other necessities. The larger truck stops usually offer a choice of a couple fast food restaurant choices along with an actual restaurant that quite often includes a buffet with home cooked style offerings. We have yet to have one of these buffets and been disappointed. The food is considerably better than any fast food meal. The prices are always very reasonable coming in at under $10 per person in most cases. Most truck stops also include 24 hour breakfast complete with coffee for about $5. Now this is just good, home style cooking that can't be beat when traveling!

Both TA and Flying J, the two largest truck stops, have online locators so finding one en route is not difficult. They are well marked as well. At the same time there are many smaller truck stops that offer great food at bargain prices. In general you can locate truck stops along your route using Google Earth, Streets and Maps or your GPS. Planned ahead stops for both fuel and good food makes traveling so much more pleasant.