Simple enough question, I’ll even start the ball rolling: the Pressure Cooker should be more popular than it is.
I use my pressure cooker at least twice weekly. This week I made chicken stew & dumplings, and split pea soup with ham hocks; last week I made corned beef & cabbage, and Chili con Carne. Those entres were very well recieved by my discriminating family members (i.e. culinary snobs) and nary a speck of food was left on any plate. The pressure cooker is an exceptionally versatile cooking implement, yet very few people that I poll use one at all; fewer still use one on a regular basis. That’s simply absurd!
Pressure cooking is a method of cooking that offers multiple advantages: speed (e.g. dried beans may be rendered soft in less than an hour); tenderness (meats may be rendered* fall-off-the-bone* tender in under an hour; anti-microbial (cooking under pressure allows for above normal boiling temperature…it’s like cooking with an autoclave); convenience (use the one pot to brown, cook and serve a varuety of multi-ingredient entres; cost-effective/eco-friendly (less cooking time = less energy use and cost).
When a dinner guest asks, *“Tibby how can one man be so sexy and also such a good cook”, I respond, with modesty, “I have help, my Butt-Master 2000 helps with the ‘sexy’ part and my Fagor 3000 Pressure Cooker helps with the ‘good cook’ part." *
Well, I’m confident many of you use a Butt-Master for your flabby butts, and equally confident that very few of you use a pressure cooker on a regular basis. Why not?!?
I suspect many of you don’t use a pressure cooker because you consider them old fashioned (“I’m too cool to cook with something my grandmother used to cook with”), and I suspect the rest of you refuse to cook with a pressure cooker because you’re afraid it will explode in your face (i.e. you’re a wuss). Well, get over it, folks, pressure cookers are cool and safe—get one and use it often, you will thank me.
O.K, I solicit comments about pressure cookers and ask for product suggestions of your own…
Are pressure cookers only good for cooking soupy things? Most of what I cook I just saute in a pan for a few minutes.
Other products:
LED flashlights. There’s an astounding difference in battery life and droppability between an incandescent or fluorescent and LED flashlight.
Along similar lines, bright bike lights. It annoys me to no end when I see bikers riding in the dark or very nearly so, with only a tiny blinker on their helmet. A good LED bike light only costs $50 to $100. Isn’t their safety worth that much?
Rechargeable low-discharge NiMH batteries. They have more capacity than alkalines and can be used over and over. Why do disposables still even exist?
Spork - What a wonderful eating tool
Reusable water bottles. I don’t understand people who buy disposable bottles of water. Insanity.
Pandora - Every human on the planet needs to know and love Pandora.
Vibram soles - I don’t think I’ve ever come to trust a brand so much.
Osprey backpacks - The epitome of comfort
Solar hot water systems - Modern ones are very effective, capable of heating water to shower temperatures on their own even on cloudy days. You’re not wasting natural gas just to keep the water tank warm for most of day.
Bamboo plywood - Hard, durable, fast-growing and abundant, I’m surprised it hasn’t replaced wood in more mid-quality applications.
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing - So many people waste precious moments of their lives typing slowly.
Ice cream makers. You can buy them at WalMart for around twenty bucks. I’ve had one I’ve used regularly for over a decade. Homemade ice cream tastes better than the best store-bought and it costs about a tenth as much. Plus you can make your own flavors.
I don’t have a kitchen/stove. I’m also not allowed cooking appliance in my room.*
I have one, it was given to me
don’t have a bike
Didn’t know about them, don’t use many batteries.
It’s an instrument of evil.
I don’t by bottle water at all.
(Had to goggle this) No interest in listening to music.
(Had to goggle this) Weird shoes, probably too expensive for me.
I have no use for a backpack
I live in a hotel, you will have to talk to the management.
No use for it
Tried using it years ago, failed at mostly because my hands shake (essential tremor)
the whole no kitchen, no place to store it.
*I do have a microwave and a small coffee pot, which I not suppose to have, but they let me keep it since I wasn’t told I couldn’t them until I had been here a year. If/when they break, I will not be allowed to replace them.
Ok, the rest is forgivable, but if you live without a spork, you’re not living at all. Call the front desk and have them bring you one. Then tip them well for bringing meaning to your life.
Lots of anti-pressure cooker propaganda in my family convinced me not to try one. My grandma had one explode on her ceiling, and swore off them ever since. My mom couldn’t cook so we didn’t have one (or a blender or coffeepot or toaster oven or grill).
I think Crocs (shoes) should be more popular than they are. They come in a lot of modern, dressy designs (including business-appropriate flats and heels!), and are much more comfortable than non-Crocs. People wearing orthotics should try Crocs, and they’re also popular for people with plantar fasciitis. And they’re cheap!
I don’t get preferring to shave legs when epilators are so much easier, more efficient, and less bother. Shaving is such a pain. Epilating is simple, and gives far better results: you get soft, thin regrowth weeks later instead of coarse regrowth in days. A good epilator runs about $50 and considering how much you continually spend on shaving supplies, the epilator is a one-time investment that pays for itself in a short time.
My mother still has scars from a pressure cooker, over 60 years later. I understand the new ones are a great deal safer, and every now and then I think I ought to get one, but I already don’t use my slow cooker very often, and my kitchen is small. I don’t know where I’d put another appliance. I also don’t know what to even look for in a pressure cooker.
I tried using one a few times. All I can say is ouch, ouch, ouch. And this comes from a woman who used to wax her legs.
Then why don’t you tell us what it is? Wikipedia lists around a hundred senses of the term, many of which are products and services that you could conceivably be referring to. Is it the music recommendation service Foggy guessed you meant? If so, how is it better than last.fm or the dozens of other free and paid music recommendation systems out there? (As a last.fm user who’s never tried anything else, I’m sincerely curious.)
Ditto, although it was my mother who had a pressure cooker blow up in her face.
Specific to my location, I can’t understand why so few people drive automatic cars. I drive an automatic as I’ve a wonky left leg, I’ve given various people lifts to wherever they were going and they’ve all be astonished when the realised it was an automatic - apparently they’re all under the delusion that an automatic is a four wheeled pushbike that won’t go over 20mph.
Stylish hats for men (and women). The ubiquitous baseball cap has run its retched course and now it’s time for men to go back to the days of classic headgear. I believe men in general stopped wearing classic hats about the time hair styles went long in the ‘60’s. Well, most men wear their hair short these days, so it’s time for stylish hats to re-appear on the headed masses, as once they did.
So, guy’s, eschew the lowly baseball cap and embrace the fashion forward fedora—it makes you look spiffy and who doesn’t want to look spiffy? More importantly, it makes you look sexy in the eyes of the ladies (and gay men). Ladies, would you rather your man look like this, or like this?..I rest my case. I wear my fedora or Stetson when I’m in a modish mood and my porkpie when I’m in a Popeye Doyle kind of mood. And ladies you too look sexier wearing headgear like this, rather than this.
cooking pumpkin for canning takes a long time. once up to temperature it takes minutes in a pressure cooker. other things also get cooked very rapidly for canning.
I can totally answer this one, and I’m a fellow wet shaver- I have a Gillette Fat Boy, an Adjustable Slim, 3 different SuperSpeeds, a couple of Gem single-edged razors and a Merkur 33C.
Speed and convenience are the reasons people don’t mess with that stuff. You can get a passable shave in a LOT less time using a 3 blade disposable razor and Barbasol than you can with a yellow 7 o’clock, a Merkur, your favorite badger brush and a tube of Proraso.
During the work week, I typically still use the DE razor, but with canned gel or stuff like Cremo Cream or King of Shaves, simply because it’s probably 15-20 minutes that I can sleep in.
Most people haven’t put in the time to be able to shave effectively with a DE razor, so for them, it would be pretty gory at first. Hell, some guys I’ve talked to don’t even really know how to shave with one of the modern razors and still get a lot of razor burn, etc… so moving to a less forgiving razor seems insane.
My vote for the product that should be more popular than it is is Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce. It’s probably the best way to add umami to your dishes, without a fishy taste, or some kind of synthetic MSG. It may smell like ass, but in small amounts, it can make spaghetti sauce, hamburgers, chili, etc… taste much better. And it’s cheap to boot! A liter is probably $3-4 on sale at the local Asian market.
