My mother-in-law has one and it scares the life out of me. To make matters worse, when i pointed out my fear of them she cheerfully informed me that she once had a ‘lucky escape’ when her old one exploded and she was answering the phone. apparently she eventually painted out the curry stains on the ceiling… Yikes.

I know it’s scary, but give it a try. It makes cooking so much faster, and food comes out fabulous, the flavors mixed… You can cook beans without waiting for hours…
Just make sure the valve is really clean, and don’t fill it more than half, if you are as coward as I am.
http://missvickie.com
That site has a Beginner’s Workshop, rules for pressure cookery and lots of recipes (I tried the minestrone – my veggie version – and it’s very good).

Oh…for a cheer for this goal…but, alas, I am out today.

I have the aluminum kind for canning. I smoke and can fish with it (actually the smoking occurs out in the woods). The smoked salmon is pure heaven.

The other one is stainless steel, and I use it for black beans, and other durable foods.

Funny story…a friend of mine was cooking black beans (Feijao Preto) in Brazil (the pressure cookers there are not UL listed or OSHA approved or whatever the governing agency of pressure cookers is down there, they are somewhat dangerous, really)...and he shook the pan a little while the beans were cooking. I was in the other room when I heard a pfpfpfpft sound (put your lips together and blow to make the pfpfpfpfpft sound), and the next thing I know there is black bean puree all over the ceiling. No one was injured. But we did learn that you never should look down the barrel of a pressure cooker. Never. Even if you think it is not loaded.

Good luck. Don’t shake it.

Had one explode as well, she herded all her kids, under the table at the time and apparently coated the house with peaches. They are scary things, but I love the way the entire house starts to smell fo good things when they are used.

my mom cooked with one all the time when we were growing up. I’ve heard about them blowing up, thankfully that never happened at our house. Google them! There’s recipe books for everything!

Try Lorna Sass’s GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE. Really takes the scariness out. Contemporary pressure cookers are not your granma’s type.

I mean… black beans in 12 minutes? Rissoto in 5? These things are GREAT!