I don’t remember ever watching my mother, grandmothers or great-grandmothers (how lucky am I to have memories of each!) use pressure cookers. I don’t have a lived traumatic pressure-cooking experience. Yet still, I am downright terrified of pressure cookers!
Why?
I hypothesize we suffer from the generational trauma of pressure cookers. Although I never directly experienced a traumatic pressure-cooker explosion, it’s possible the fear has been passed down from one generation of my family to the next.
I texted my sister-in-law and our friend, Laura Remmick, a Northern Plains Electric Cooperative member from Robinson, to see if either had an electric pressure cooker, multicooker or “Instant Pot,” as it’s often called, I could borrow to test this month’s recipes.
“Those intimidate me,” my sister-in-law said. Same, girl, noting our shared generational trauma.
Luckily, Laura had two, a new version and an older version she calls “Old Faithful.”
Laura is a busy mom, farm wife and paraeducator. She is also one of the best cooks I know. You know those farm women who seem to never stop cooking and working, but somehow manage to conjure up those farm women voodoo powers to deliver homemade meals AND dessert day after day? That’s Laura.
When recipe testing day arrived, I hoped Laura’s farm woman magic dust would transfer to me through Old Faithful, and I prayed to not blow up the office kitchen.
The hardest part was figuring out which buttons to push. I quickly learned not all electric pressure cookers are the same. The instruction manual could have been in French and still been as helpful as the one written in English. But with the internet at my fingertips, I proved smarter than the pressure cooker.
The scariest part was turning the pressure cooker valve to the release or open position. It was like opening a bottle of champagne or canned biscuits: You know the “pop” is coming, but it gets you every time!
The best and most surprising part, however, was realizing as long as I don’t put my face directly above the steam release valve, this pressure-cooking stuff is kind of hard to screw up.
It’s official: I will be buying an electric pressure cooker this winter. It seems I am doing my part to break the generational trauma in my family.
Find electric pressure-cooker recipes (with slow-cooker swaps) even I can understand on the next page.
___
Cally Peterson is editor of North Dakota Living. She can be reached at cpeterson@ndarec.com
PRESSURE COOKER HOT TAKES
• Pressure cookers have come a long way from the older models, which lacked modern safety features. Today’s electric pressure cookers offer safety mechanisms, including locking lids, pressure sensors and temperature controls, but should still be treated with care.
• Not all pressure cookers are the same, so read the manufacturer’s instructions.
• Other pressure-cooker recipes can be helpful and offer clues if you’re unsure about a step or instruction. Search for similar recipes online and do a little research.
• Pressure cookers save time and energy! Pressure cookers cut energy use by cooking food faster than ovens, stoves or slow cookers, and they don’t waste energy radiating heat into the kitchen. Using a pressure cooker can slash cooking time by 70%.
