What is this? Some sort of theme topic day? First jl and now EL:

"Cooking With Equipment That Can Blow Up And Kill You Deader Than The Thing You Are Cooking"

I like to cook my meat over an open flame in a hydrogen blimp...oh, the humanity!

My mother uses hers all of the time.

I bought a pressure cooker. I had all of these great plans for using it. I never used it. It is, however, one of the most prominent pieces in my kitchen museum where it shares space with the rest of my collection: a rotisserie, a george foreman griller, an indoor bbq pit, a convection oven/dehydrator, an electric grill/griddle, a set of green pans, and a pasta machine.

I can see a pressure cooker for pot roast, but for potatoes and cabbage seems overkill. Potatoes only take about 20 minutes to cook in a normal pot.

That said, I rarely use my pressure cooker, largely because I don't really understand how to use it (and when). Can anyone recommend a good book on, say, how to translate "normal" recipes to use a pressure cooker?

My huge 21.5 quart pressure canner, on the other hand, gets regular use for canning chicken stock, beef stock, tomato sauce, etc.

I don't think it takes a book. It cooks things in about one third of the time. If I'm home, I'm happy to cook things for however long it takes, but if I'm in a hurry it's a life saver. I like it better than the microwave because it doesn't change the texture. EL

My mother had a pressure cooker. The first time she blew a hole in the kitchen ceiling, my father fixed it. The second time, he left it there. She took the pressure causing thingy off so it was just the-heavy-pot. After she died, he had the kitchen remodeled and the ceiling repaired.

I don't have a pressure cooker, despite loving Indian food.

My mother used her's quite a bit, before she gave up cooking. It exploded once, while she was cooking corned beef and cabbage. Kitchen smelled of cabbage for months after that.

Wasn't as good as the time my brother blew up an egg, but that had nothing to do with a pressure cooker. Ditto for when he set the house on fire making toast.

Pressure cookers sound like a good idea, but I'm not sure I want to blow holes in the ceiling and stuff.

RoCK, the Foreman griller is great with burgers, when you don't feel like firing up the grill.

OMG

I can't find the last of mention of "Snickers" but I think I found him on the Daily Show last night.

My wife brought one into our marriage. When I figured out how to use it, I wore it out (well, the gasket, at any rate). Once upon a time the late, lamented C-Mart had a bunch on sale and I went home with once of the best $25 purchases I have ever made. It gets used mostly for weeknight pot roasts and the home made corned beef I like to do.

But I am a rank amateur compared to my mother-in-law who uses her's to transform bits and pieces of leftover vegetables into killer broth with which to make amazing vegetable beef barley soup. That my children learned to love the taste of vegetables is her doing.

RoCK, if you're ever looking to get rid of any of that stuff, lemme know ...

Maybe Snickers went to Candy Mountain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY

Like Robert of Cross Keys, my wife and I are veterans of gizmo overkill. There's the discarded breadmaker that made bread twice as expensive and half as tasty as store-bought. There's the blowtorch doofus for crystalizing creme brulee that my wife uses maybe once a year. And down in the cellar, among the carcasses of blown-out Black and Decker toasters, is a pressure cooker old enough to be carbon-dated.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my pressure cookers. And they really aren't dangerous like the old ones were. Looks for the Fagor or Kuhn Rikon brands, and the books that come with them have all the info you need to know to use them. You can make risotto faster than Rice-a-Roni (great recipe for pressure cooker risotto -- perfect, and no stirring -- in Cook's Illustrated), cook dried chickpeas and other beans in minutes (why use canned chickpeas in hummus?), and make a stew that tastes like you cooked it all day in 45 minutes. I always wonder why the Top Chef contestants don't use them...it allows you to escape the normal confines of the space-time continuum and be a superhero chef! They do use them a lot on the Iron Chef shows. And since I work, weeknight dinners are often like a one-hour time challenge!

Shun! Shun the unbeliever!

Lissa, I too have blown an egg up. It was a very messy (and smelly) microwave accident when I first got my microwave and thought I could hard boil an egg in it.

My mother once blew up a roast in the oven. It was in one of those cooking bags that she forgot to punch holes into. Talk about mess! The people who live in that house now are probably still finding tiny shards of roast in that oven!

Joyce, my brother tried to hard boil an egg on an electric burner. Without water. Or a pot.

impressive!

This is entirely related, but ... my little sister once tried to cook up some My Little Pony Shrinky-Dinks in the microwave. She put them in there on a sheet of aluminum foil; there are still blackened pony shapes embedded in the back of my parents' microwave.

On the topic of blowing things up, one year my step-mom planned on making oyster stew for some holiday.

She is not an expert in the kitchen, but every once in a while she will get a bit adventurous and attempt to follow a recipe for something she has never made.

Well, the recipe called for use af a double boiler, but when it came time to get down to it, no double bopiler could be found. Instead she decided to just use two pots stacked on top of each other.

Well, the pots on, guests had arrived, wine was poured...everyone was having a delightful time. Then...

BOOM!!!!

The pressure had built up and the stew exploded all over the kitchen, scalding my step mother, a couple of the guests that were hovering around the appetizer counter, and my poor little cairn terrier.

Thjere was stew stains on the ceiling for months, and an amusing story to tell for years. My poor little pup was not nearly as amused as we were.

Oh, I love this topic--it makes me feel better about the time one of my sons related a kitchen accident I had for show and tell. (Surely I'm not the only one who forgot to put water in the steamer ...) But I've been afraid of pressure cookers ever since hearing about the time my grandmother covered the kitchen ceiling and walls with pea soup.

Lissa--how is your dear brother now?

That is an epic microwave fail!

Now I want ponies in my microwave. For pony!

Dahlink, my brother is fine. Well, he wasn't harmed by the exploding egg.

Mom was, though. You see, she'd just had, um...abdominal surgery. When I tried to get the egg (browning nicely along the bottom) off the red hot burner, it exploded. Mom jumped, and pulled out some stitches. She had to go to the ER hours later, and explain that she was startled by an egg.

Nanny (my mother's mother) came running. I got a 45 min. lecture on how one should never touch hot eggs with cold metal tongs. My brother made himself a peanut butter sandwich and wandered off.

What can I say? He was 11, I was 12.

Ms Lisa - LOL, thank you. I can just picture your brother walking away with an un-cut peanut butter sandwich in one hand (single bite taken) looking back at the commotion, wondering what the fuss was about.

RtSO, that is about what happened. I was a girl, I was the oldest, it was all my fault.

When he was around 25, he decided to surprise Mom with breakfast in bed. He put the toast on, then went for his shower.

Now, my brother generally takes a good hour in the bathroom. I think he shines and buffs each hair individually. I'm not sure. I can't go over 10 min., even if I'm being decadent and lounging in the hot water in the winter.

When he came downstairs, the first floor was filled with smoke.

Mom woke up to the sound of fire trucks stopping out front.

Seems the toast got stuck in the down position, caught on fire and charred the cabinet above. Not much damage, really, but it certainly did surprise Mom.

A few years ago, she told me he'd taken up cooking as his new hobby. I suggested she double her house insurance coverage.

I'm still laughing over startled by an egg!

These stories have been quite enjoyable, thanks all!

I have cooked in a 1950 6qt presto cooker which I rework the gasket and presssure relief for the past 2 weeks. I cannot for the life of me see how the lid can blow off, the aluminum is about 1/2 inch thick when the plates are locked together. I have been experimenting for 2 weeks, you can never put enough water to cook with. Check the food after 30 min, it is easy to get the pressure back up an cook it a little longer. Be sure to add more water.