Today's Special: Pressure Cooker Meals

So about a week before my birthday my mom called me to chat. Sometime during the conversation she asked me what I wanted for my birthday present:

Me: Um.... hmmm.... I know I want lots of stuff... let me think for a second.

Mom: Corinne got a really cool 3-in-1 steamer/pressure cooker/slow cooker. She really likes it.

Me: I know there's something I wanted I just need to think for a second.

Mom: Has she told you about it? It's really amazing.

Me: Wasn't there some sort of fishing thing I needed?

Mom: So I have one of these 3 in 1 pressure cookers too. It's really amazing. It's ELECTRIC.

Me: Wait, what?

Mom: Yeah it's an electric pressure cooker.

Me: Really? Does it work good?

Mom: Oh yeah. You can just type in the amount of time you want it to go for and after it's done it shuts down to a "warming" mode. It's a steamer too. You can cook rice in it and use it as a slow cooker. And it has a delay cooking option.

Me: I've never even heard of such a thing! I need one!

Mom: You can think about it if you want and let me know.

Me: Nope I've made up my mind. I need a 3 in 1 electric pressure cooker for my birthday.

Mom: Ok, if that's what you really want.

Isn't my mom so geniusly talented at getting me to want stuff? It was like some sort of Green Beret tactic of making me ask for the thing she already had in mind. Those are some serious skills.

So I use my pressure cooker on a regular basis, but usually just to cook potatoes or frozen chicken breasts. But now that I had this new fancy contraption, I had to expand my mind and use it as intended... a quick one dish delicious meal producer.

I scoured the Internets and found a handful of recipes that sounded enticing and thought I would share them with you in this week's theme: Pressure Cooker Meals. Enjoy.

Corned Beef & Cabbage: This was by far my favorite meal of the week. It wasn't exactly fast at about 90 minutes, but much faster than a regular corned beef meal and definitely tasty. Plus since I didn't have to watch the pressure cooker at all, I was able to fit in a pre-dinner run . I don't know if the recipe producer had a giant sized pressure cooker or what, but I wasn't able to fit all my veggies in the pot. I will definitely be making this again.

Navy Bean Soup- This one took a little preparation to soak the beans overnight, but it was hardly time consuming or difficult. I couldn't find a 3 lb. ham shank... only a bunch around 10 pounds, so I thought maybe it was supposed to use ham hocks instead. So that's what I used. They look really disgusting but the soup turned out great. I cooked mine a little bit longer as I noticed the recipe says to cook it at 15 psi and the high setting on my pressure cooker is 9 psi. Oh, I also ended up using both my regular pressure cooker and the electric one because this made a ton of soup. If you only have one regular sized cooker, I suggest cutting the recipe in half. This was a very good soup and one I would make again. If you've never tried Navy Beans (aka White Beans) you're missing out. They are very buttery and delicious!

Ham with Vegetables- While this wasn't a gourmet meal by any means, it was a good solid meat and potatoes type meal and it was fast! If you like ham and vegetables, this would be a nice addition to your weekly menu.

BBQ Ribs- I picked up some pork baby back ribs on impulse when I saw they were on sale. Turns out you can cook them in the pressure cooker too! I think they could have used a few extra minutes in the cooker as the meat wasn't quite as tender next to the bone as I would have liked, but the sauce was great! I cut back on the sugar by 1 full cup as suggested by other reviewers and doubled the cayenne pepper (they were not spicy in the slightest). I may like this recipe even more than my regular standby. Awesome!