Letting Off Steam

I cook at home 4-6 nights a week. Cooking is not my favorite, but I do it very willingly because it is a valuable weapon in my frugal arsenal (like maybe an Uzi.  For comparison purposes, washing and reusing Ziploc baggies would be like a spitball.  But I do it, because even spitballs have a place in WAR).  But I digress.  As you know, I am lazy.  So, whenever I have a chance to add a little razzle-dazzle to make the experience more interesting I am ready to give it a whirl.  As long as it’s cheap razzle-dazzle of course.

I recently found some cheap razzle-dazzle lurking in my pantry in the form of a pressure cooker.  This pressure cooker was a gift from my brother and my parents about ten years ago.  It’s a 15 quart monster.

I used this a bit when I first got it but it really scared me.  My mom delighted in telling me the most horrifying stories, apparently experienced by people she REALLY ACTUALLY KNEW  -or- KNEW OF.  Suffice it to say that these stories involved levels of carnage not usually seen in the average home kitchen.

But I am older and braver now.  Why, just this past year I man-upped and rode the people-mover at the Texas State Fair.  It was a terrifying but life-changing experience.  It proved to me just how far I personally could push the courage envelope.

Not wanting to waste all this nascent broiling courage, but of course wanting to unleash it in the direction of Frugal activities, my Pressure Cooker presented the perfect opportunity.  I went for broke and decided to cook pinto beans as my inagaural (sp?) dish. To paraphrase my pressure cooker owner’s manual: ABSOLUTELY, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, COOK BEANS IN THIS PRESSURE COOKER.  YOU WILL DIE.  But I am Frugal and Fierce, and plus I really love beans.  So I put the beans in the cooker, covered them with enough water so that they were under 2 inches, added 1-2 TBS of oil to hold down frothing, and commenced pressure cooking.

I observed proceedings behind a protective cookie sheet shield.  Boy, my heart was beating fast because it was scary.  Jiggling, steaming - this is not cooking for wimps! After the pot got up to 15psi pressure the beans cooked in an amazing 14 minutes.  That is great! (I did soak them 4 hours beforehand).  However, since my pressure cooker is a 15 quart monster, it took a good 15-20 minutes for it to get up to that pressure, so it was a total cooking time of about 34 minutes, which is still great for scratch pinto beans.

Now, I don’t advise you at all to cook beans in your pressure cooker because YOU WILL DIE.  I am just relating a recent frugal experience.  However, I think it was a worthwhile frugal experience for me, and I will definitely make pressure cooking a regular part of my routine: if nothing else it will certainly liven things up in the kitchen.

The moral(s) of this story: 1. Pressure cooking is scary.  2.  If there is some Frugal task that you hate to do, but do it because it adds to your bottom line, find a way to liven it up.  It helps! 3. Pressure cookers can be a valuable Frugal weapon.