My initial thoughts on the Instant Pot.

My parents got me an Instant Pot for my birthday.  I was very excited to receive it but  I have to admit, I was a little intimidated. 

I started out by boiling some eggs.  The pot wheezed and steamed and I was paranoid the entire time that the lid was going to shoot off and leave a hole in the ceiling.  They turned out fine except one cracked and the lid stayed on the pot and I felt a little better.

I boiled more eggs a couple of days after that and everything was find and dandy. They were perfect.  And other than the speed with which you can boil the eggs, the other fabulous benefit is that the Instant Pot eggs are so easy to peel.  You can literally peel them with one hand! 

Dan has been eating low carb since spring and loves deviled eggs.  Whenever I would make them in a regular pot of boiling water, I would get so frustrated because it took me FOREVER to get them peeled.  And in my frustration, I would end up losing some of the whites or large chunks would be missing.  They were some homely looking deviled eggs. That problem has disappeared with the Instant Pot.

Last night Ifinally tried a real recipe and it was fabulous!   Carne Asada Street Tacos from Happy Mothering. 

This picture is from her blog (obviously) because we were too busy eating them to be snapping pictures!

The meat was sooooo delicious and tender.  Everyone scarfed them up.  I served them with creama (sour cream mixed with lime juice and a little salt), avocado slices, and pico de gallo that I purchased pre-made from Aldi.  On the side we had Mexi-Corn (corn kernels that I sauteed in olive oil and then I add mayonnaise, salt, pepper, lime juice, and chili powder.  It tastes almost as good as the Mexican Street Corn Dan and I had on our honeymoon.) and Spanish rice. 

So good!  I will definitely be making this again! 

After my first shaky attempt at making hard boiled eggs, I watched quite a few YouTube videos on getting to know your Instant Pot.  I found that very helpful.  I've a visual person so being able to see someone using the pot and explaining it as they went along was beneficial.

So if you are new to the Instant Pot world, I recommend watching some YouTube videos first.  Then trying something very simple like hard boiled eggs and then trying this Carne Asada taco recipe.

And a little FYI...It does take some time for the cooker to come up to pressure so factor that in when you are making a recipe.  If a recipe calls for cook time of 10 minutes and a  natural pressure release time of 15 minutes, your total time will not be 25 minutes.

It will take the cooker some time to come to pressure.  It's kind of like the time it takes the oven to preheat.  The quantity of liquid and the temperature of the contents in the pot will determining the amount of time required to reach the right pressure for cooking. With the carne asada I cooked last night, it probably took the pot about 8 to 10 minutes to reach pressure and then start cooking.

Do you have an Instant Pot?  If so, what are some of your favorite recipes? Please share!