My New Best Friend!

For the past several years, I've been debating whether or not to purchase a pressure cooker.  I would see recipe posts using a pressure cooker and say maybe I should get one?  Then I would think I have no more room in the kitchen and most recipes seemed to be ones I could make in my crock pot.

Before, I start let me say this isn't a sponsored post, just my own thoughts.  If you're an Amazon Prime member, you're familiar with the Prime Day sales from a couple of weeks ago.  One of the items on sale was the Instant Pot, prior to Prime Day, I had never seen an Instant Pot.  The Instant Pot is touted as Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Rice Cooker, Yogurt Maker and more.  On Prime Day, the cooker was on sale for $69.99.  Okay so now I was thinking, if this pot really can be my rice cooker and my slow cooker, maybe I do have room for this in the kitchen??  I did some reading and everything I read was this was the best gadget since sliced bread.  I was hooked and ordered one.

Two days later when the Instant Pot arrived, Tim and I unpacked it and attempted to steam some carrots for dinner.  It was quite intimidating at first, lots of steps and buttons and in the back of my mind, all I could think of was the old pressure cookers that would blow up.  Really I don't want to have this blow up in my kitchen?!!!  Our first attempt at the steamed carrots was a bit of a bust because I didn't realize time had to be based on the cooker coming up to pressure, so 4 minutes is really 14+ minutes, allowing for the 10 or so minutes for the unit to come up to pressure.

Once I became familiar with the ins and outs of the Instant Pot, I was over the fear of it blowing up and ready to experiment with what I could make.  Ten days or so later, the Instant Pot is my new best friend.  I've made pasta and meatballs, chicken breasts for chicken curry, chicken broth from a carcass (which finishes in 30 minutes!), lentils, corn on the cob and hard boiled eggs.

Hard boiled eggs are just one of many things  Instant Pot users rave about! Thinking I would make egg salad for lunch this week, I decided to give them a try! The reviews are correct, if you've ever struggled with peeling eggs, you'll agree.  These eggs peeled perfectly and were beautifully cooked!  Yep ... I'm on the bandwagon (albeit a little late, the Instant Pot has been available for a while),  I love the Instant Pot!!!

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs

Ingredients

• Eggs (as many as you like to fill the bottom of the pot rack or a steamer basket)
• 1 cup water
• Instant Pot electric pressure cooker

Instructions

1. Pour the water into the pot, and place the eggs in a steamer basket if you have one. If you don't, just use the rack that came with your pot.
2. Close the lid, set for 5 minutes at high pressure.
3. It will take the cooker approximately 5 minutes to build to pressure and then 5 minutes to cook. Let the pressure naturally reduce for an additional 5 minutes after the cooking cycle completed, and then do a quick pressure release. That's around 15 minutes, total.
4. Place the hot eggs into cool water to halt the cooking process. You can peel immediately, or wait.