Caveat emptor

I bought myself an Instant Pot on Prime Day. Have you been watching people rave about their Instant Pots too? It browns the meat; it cooks the rice; it hard-boils the eggs with mysterious hard-boiling magic that means they never again stick to their shells when you peel them. I added one to my Amazon wish list at some point because it's the kind of thing my mother-in-law might like to give us for our anniversary if she knew we'd been thinking about getting one. (The plural pronouns in that sentence are purely hypothetical. I did not say to Elwood, "Wouldn't you like an Instant Pot for our anniversary?" He would not have confessed to a secret hankering for an Instant Pot of our own.)

And then on Prime Day they were all over my Facebook feed. THE INSTANT POT IS ON SALE, thundered person #1. IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE, said person #2. OH THE SECRET JOYS OF NIU JIANG, chimed in-- well, nobody said that, actually, but did you know the Instant Pot will ferment your glutinous rice for you if you push the right button? Do you have an adequate quantity of niu jiang in your life, my friend? I am betting that your fermented glutinous rice supply is pretty sparse.

So I was at work today when I got the message that my Instant Pot had been delivered, and I started thinking of all the things I might do with it. Wasn't it a good idea to buy one appliance that could replace two of my more space-hoggy kitchen items (the slow cooker and the pressure cooker)? One of my friends had said that the smaller version of the Instant Pot could only handle two artichokes at once, and I was pleased that I could look forward to the multi-artichoke version.

Then I came home to a box approximately the size of the Chrysler building. You guys, I could fit a field's worth of artichokes in this thing. Those Amazon thumbnails offer no indication of the Brobdingnagian scale of an 8-quart Instant Pot. Do you think I am exaggerating because I am a person occasionally given to exaggeration? Behold:

(Why am I running in that picture, you ask? Because the thing could house a live allosaurus, that's why, and I am uncertain about what might be wrestling the lid off from the inside even as I type these words of warning.)

So yeah, go ahead and buy an Instant Pot, because it will fill your unmet need to make congee with the push of a button like nothing else on the market. (My 17yo: "It makes Japanese characters appear with the push of a button?" I'd never realized that congee and kanji were homophones, but so they are.) Just be aware that you might need to give up one of the spots in your garage if you plan to store it on your property.

My slow cooker and pressure cooker sit cheek by jowl on the bottom shelf of our shallow pantry, tucked in with the waffle irons and the enameled cast-iron pot. But I don't think I will be able to close the door on the hulking girth of the Instant Pot. Right now it is on my music room floor while I contemplate the mysteries of the owner's manual. Between the outer box, the inner box, and the pot itself, there isn't much floor space left in our little music room.

Tonight at dinner we were talking about credit scores. My teen said (oh so sweetly), "You should write a book." "That would be a boring book," I told him, "because it would say 'Pay your bills on time every month, the end.'" He added, "And probably it would say, 'Don't buy stupid things.'"

My husband gave me some serious side-eye at that point. "I...am not feeling qualified to write that chapter of the book today," I said sheepishly.

Comments

[bearing]

I have the same one!

Here is the first tip that I feel you might use: You know those recipes for Skillet Rice Dinners that promise dinner very simply in one pan but only work on white rice? The Instant Pot can make them work with brown rice!

What, aren't you excited yet?

[Jenny]

Oh! I am so glad to hear this. I somehow resisted the call of the Instant Pot this week and have felt cranky about not buying it.

The number one concern is where it might be stored. I still might get one in November because I am definitely crockpot impaired, but I will have to think long and hard about space arrangements before pulling the trigger.

[Ariella]

I have the same Instant Pot. I am not going to say it changed my life, BUT it has made cooking during the week a lot easier. Yes, it is huge and finding a place for it to live in my kitchen was a big pain.

First, you can convert almost any slow cooker recipe to the pressure cooker and it will come out very well and in about 1/3 of the time. Once you become familiar with the time required to cook various meats, it will become easy for you to convert these recipes on the fly. I successfully converted a 12-hour Rick Bayless recipe for my birthday dinner and it was GREAT.

Second, you can put a massive pork shoulder or brisket or whatever in there on a Sunday, cook it, shred it, and then use the meat during the week. So it significantly shortens cooking times during the week, too. This also allows you to de-fat whatever liquid is left in the Instant Pot, if you care about that kind of thing.

Third, it makes pretty good chicken stock (though not as good as if you made it on the stove). It also makes very good beans in a fraction of the time it would normally take to make homemade beans, so that has been a lot of fun. I always liked homemade beans, but never remembered to cook them early enough, so now I can make them and don't have to waste money on canned.

[Pippi]

I would like an instant pot update in a few months. I am intrigued but my kitchen is literally the size of a closet (real literally, not figuratively literally). It has to be awesome if I'm going to clear out space for it but as I will be working a lot more next year I'm eager for ways to make dinner easier.

[L - Mama(e) in Translation]

I don't have the Instant pot pressure cooker, but an equivalent one I got on Costco, the Power Pressure Cooker XL and it has a non-stick inner pot that really doesn't stick.

I LOOOOVE that thing, but it's HUMONGOUS too! After lugging it up and down from the garage my husband moved my (huge) slow cooker down to the garage so we could store it (without the lid!) on one of the metal shelves of my (very deep) pantry. It's absolutely excellent for both rice and for beans and since I'm vegetarian I cannot really say anything about meats! I hope you'll love it. I'm never using my (regular) pressure cooker again and neither the rice cooker.

[L - Mama(e) in Translation]

*got AT Costco. Ah... how I hate prepositions! I can never get them right. :-(

[Melanie B]

I was kind of afraid that I'd never use my Instant Pot, but it turns out I have used it quite a bit. This week I made pulled pork and it was delicious. I love pulled pork, but I am never together enough to remember to put things in the crockpot in the morning. With the instant pot I don't even need to remember to defrost the meat. I just browned it, still frozen, in the pot, then tossed in onions and spices, and cooked it. slow cooker tender in less than 2 hours from freezer to table.

I love not needing to plan ahead for beans. I love the easy peel boiled eggs. And quick chicken stock.

[Kristin]

Where does the 300-pound Instant Pot sit? ANYWHERE IT WANTS! ;-)

[MrsDarwin]

Yes, I too resisted the siren call of Prime Day. I'm not an early adapter by any means, so I'm watching the FB chatter as I try to decide. My family size would require the 500-lb. gorilla Instant Pot, so although I do have the storage space and even the counter space, I'd want to be sure I'd use the thing often. Also, waiting for my meal mojo to return in the wake of baby -- it's been pasta and whatnot a lot here, lately.

Mostly I'm intrigued by cutting dinner cooking time, since I'm always looking at frozen chicken breasts at 6:30 and wondering why I didn't figure out dinner earlier.