Bring on the Pressure ... Cookin'!

I was feeling very accomplished the other day.  

I've been cooking with a toaster oven for almost a year now, with the addition of a hot plate 6 months ago.

• Spaghetti NOODLES took an hour to cook...and that was after the hot plate entered the home.
• Beans from scratch...I tried...once.
• Soup...nope (except the 4 times I bought canned soup).
• Lentils...forget it.
• Rice...a little crunchy at times.

My family still had food to eat.

Yes, I do feel I have accomplished a hard task on this adventure we are on!

However,

Feeling accomplished does not erase the INTENSE desire to speed things up!

Several people suggested a crock pot, but again, I was looking to speed things up.  For several years now I have been thinking about getting a pressure cooker.  As Summer turned into Fall, I began thinking of all the money we would save by making soups and how nice it is to eat soup through the winter.  I'm a bit of a soup snob and I really don't like the preservatives often found in canned soups.  I again broached the subject of a pressure cooker with my husband and on our date night class 

Costco's Pressure cookers are EXTRA LARGE                    but we got one anyway; after all what's one more LARGE item in a TINY HOUSE??!

See that space where I'm storing towels under the counter?  The pressure cooker actually fits perfectly there once I moved some things around.

 

Now that it is out of the box it doesn't look quite so intimidating.  

Not to mention I made a Cheesy Broccoli Potato casserole this afternoon in under an hour!!!!!!!!!