I pulled mine out just last week to make Chick Peas. Well let me rephrase that, to cook chick peas that I had soaked all day at work. Normally they would have had to cook for an hour, but with a pressure cooker, just 30 minutes and they were done. They were quickly turned into some AMAZING Hummus.

I've also used mine to quickly make Caramel sauce out of canned condensed milk. I bought it just for experiment. It was very cool, and fresh caramel sauce is excellent!

One of my Sisters-in-law is an expert pressure cooker. She has several sizes, and found a book from her local library that really got her started.

Don't be scared! New pressure cooker models have safety features so they won't explode.

Also, Cooking Light magazine has an article about pressure cookers (w/recipes) in their September issue.

I love my pressure cooker. Perfect beans cooked from dry in 20 minutes, fluffy whole grains in 20 minutes or less, you can really cook just about anything in it. I keep finding new ways to use it, but I am constantly using it for beans and grains (since those make up a decent portion of my diet).

Mine also has a delay setting, waking up/arriving home from work to freshly something freshly cooked is so nice.

Seems like I'm not the only one who regularly uses the PC to cook chickpeas.

However, I also make chicken stock in mine: just throw in the carcass of your roast chicken immediately after dinner together with a carrot, whole onion, water to cover, peppercorns & whatever else strikes your fancy. Pressure cook for about 45 minutes. Turn off the heat & leave to cool on the stove overnight. The next morning the stock is cool & ready to strain.

It's also great for making stews or pretty much anything else you'd normally make in a slow-cooker, just in a fraction of the time.

Great for soups. I use mine to make bean soup and vegetable beef soup. Tastes like it's cooked all day!

i had never heard of a pressure cooker until my partner brought one home, was a staple in his house growing up. Most of the recipes we use it for are from him so they are Indian, but we use it to cook lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, carrots, paneer - like others have said anything that takes long to cook takes less time in a pressure cooker! We have actually been looking into investing in a new one thats how useful we find it.

here is about 300 recipes using a pressure cooker, see if any of these recipes catch your attention
http://www.food.com/recipe-finder/pressure-cooker?Ns=recipe_mostpopular|1

Good for dal of any kind, but especially great for chickpeas, which usually take hours. 25 minutes and done!

i use our pressure cooker about every second day, it's one of the most-used things in our kitchen.

i second the bean + stock ideas. we do that constantly (there are no cans of beans or stock at our place), plus we make a heck of a lot of soup in our pressure cooker (old fashioned stove-top model). sauté some onions/shallots/leeks, deglaze with some wine, add your veggies of choice plus some stock or water, salt/spice to taste, cook for a few minutes and then get out your immersion blender... voilà, instant velouté of whatever veggie(s) you have on hand - pumpkin, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot...
(top with a bit of cream or crème fraîche for the pleasure of your eyes and mouth)

two personal fave combos:
*hokkaido squash (potimarron) with a touch of truffle oil
*turnip with ginger, topped with sautéed greens and bacon

stewy things like lentil soups and couscous/tajines cook up in a quarter of the time.

also very useful for boiling potatoes in a jif - either for boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes.

and last but not least: artichokes. we eat artichokes all the time in season as a first course, they take 5-10 minutes to steam in the pressure cooker (depends on size).

During the past few hot weeks here in the midwest, I've used a PC to cook potatoes quickly for potato salad and to make chicken stock. Risotto also works very well, as does this bolognese sauce http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/01/tomato-sauce-with-hot-pork-sausage-bolognese-pressure-cooking-recipe.html

I have 4 pressure cookers and use them for everything from stew to risotto to tamales. I've even used mine for cheescakes and steamed puddings (wrap in foil first!). Once you get the hang of it -- every pressure cooker is a little bit different -- you can adapt all your favourite recipes fairly easily. For many, its nothing more complicated than adding a bit more liquid.
Also, do yourself a favour and get either Lorna Sass' or Victoria Wise' cookbooks on pressure cooking

I love my pressure cooker! Same as everyone mentioned above, but also for things like Pork Ragu: http://www.bitchincamero.com/2009/09/pressure-cooker-pork-ragu/

I'm actually going to make some short ribs tonight. It's august and I want to enjoy my beefy ribs without having the oven on for 3 hours!

Pressure cookers do have safety features, but if you are using an older one make sure they still work. A friend of mine's safety valve blew and forced an entire chicken (minus bones) out through the hole and all over the kitchen. The cooker itself launched across the room, scary.

On the other hand, the best food I have ever had (stupid secret family recipe means I have only had it a couple times) was made in a pressure cooker.

I was introduced to pressure cookers from a friend who lives on a sailboat with her family of 4! She says pressure cookers are a staple in galley kitchens. Her Chicken Cacciatore sold me! Delicious.

Steel cut oats cook up fast and creamy in a pressure cooker, as do the aforementioned beans, soups and stews.

artichokes! fast and easy and so delicious :)

Cooking Light had an article about pressure cookers this month. They had some good recipes, including one for a Spanish chickpea/sausage stew that looked really good.

I use my pressure cooker to make steel cut oats for breakfast.

Hi Susan, compliments on your impulse buy!

When looking at online recipes for your pressure cooker, you need to know that most are written for stove-top models that reach 15 psi and thus reduce regular cooking time by 30%. Electric models can range in their psi anywhere from 5 to 12 psi! This can significantly increase the cooking time for recipes written for a stove-top!

I suggest you look at your instruction manual to see what the maximum psi is for your electric pressure cooker. If it is 5 psi you will need to reduce the cooking time for a normal recipe by only 10%, if is 10 psi you will need to reduce the cooking time by 20% and the standard 15 psi reduces the cooking time by 30%.

Come for a visit to my pressure cooker recipe website, send me an email with your psi, and I can work out a formula for you to use for easily converting regular and standard pressure cooker recipe cooking times!

http://www.hippressurecooking.com/

Ciao!

L

A lot!

Tenderize beans and meat, make corned beef, sardines!

Yum! Good buy!

we love ours! we use it to cook beans of all kinds. it's quick and easy.

my husband made his chicken stock in it once, but we found it was too delicate and lacked the flavour that longer cooking imparts.

I use it for making marmalade (I start with boiling the Seville oranges for 40 min or so). And artichokes. And chick peas.

Reading avidly, as I also got a pressure cooker and am leery. I was convinced by Jacques Pepin, who made a chicken in one on Fast Food My Way, and Alton Brown, who made beef broth. Note to self: watch less food TV.

I got a pressure cooker about 10 years ago as a gift, along with Lorna Sass' book, Vegeterian Cooking Under Pressure. There are some good recipes, but even better are the charts for cooking different beans, rice, and grains. So fast and easy to translate any soup/grain recipe into a pressure cooker recipe. I love quick risotto in the pressure cooker too.

Well, it's great for steaming too, I use ours (we have 3, two stove top and 1 electric) to steam dumplings, vegetables such as broccoli, idlis. Desserts such as indian rice pudding and caramel custrd can be made in one successfully.

Of course it's also great for cooking infant/toddler food. I give my son regular table food now, but sometimes use a pressure cooker to soften his portion a wee bit more (by cooking for a few more mins).

I make apple/pear sauce in mine as well, by steaming the fruit.

I bought one pressure cooker from Macy's, it was cheap. Now the gasket broke. Can I use any generic gasket in it's place? Please advise.