I just had a nice bowl of left-over minestrone for lunch. It was made last evening, as the first meal in my new Instant Pot™.

I have quite a few friends who have had these nifty doo-dads for a while. I hear all the time about how convenient they are, and I was intrigued. I put one on my Amazon wishlist, with the intention of learning more and doing some comparisons.

Santa (aka my hubby) must have been intrigued, too, as an Instant Pot Duo Plus 9-in-1 6-quart magically appeared under our tree on Christmas morning. I have joined the ranks of the initiated.

As is normally abnormal for me, I’m obsessing. Before I even took the thing out of the box and set it up, I had read all of the documentation that came with it, downloaded and fully read the full manual, installed the app on my Kindle Fire tablet, joined the Facebook group, and watched hours of how-to videos. I still wasn’t prepared for the fact that the device took over 20 minutes to come to full pressure, and then a half hour to cook a pot of soup, though.

Not exactly “instant.” However, I most certainly can’t fault the end product. It was delicious! I discovered that a big pot of soup like that normally takes a while, simply due to the volume of liquid. The vegetables were tender, the flavorful stock permeated all the ingredients, and my house still smells like an Italian Grandma’s kitchen. (That is not a complaint, by the way. We love garlic around here. Vampires would get twitchy in our house.)

As with most crazes, there are as many different ideas about how to do things right as there are fans of the appliance. One expert tells you that you “must” have at least a 1.5 to 1 ratio of water to rice in order to avoid the dreaded “Burn” error on the readout. Other experts (and Instant Pot™ themselves) insist that the ratio is always 1:1, because no steam escapes from the pressure cooking process, and therefore the moisture circulates back into the rice, creating the perfect result. In all likelihood, I will find my own process through trial and error, after starting with the manufacturer’s recommendation.

We eat a lot of rice around here.

Although I’ve only made the one dish, and have only had the Instant Pot for a few days, I’m already impressed. I have a feeling that will only get better as I learn the details of operation, and play with a wide variety of recipes.

I’ve long been a fan of slow cookers. This has the convenience of a slow cooker…only faster.

Plus, it has buttons. Lots of buttons. I’m such a techno-geek; it’s really quite pathetic.

Do you love your Instant Pot™? What’s your favorite food to make in it?

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