Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update: On Prime Day of July 2016, I bought another one of these pressure cookers. So many times I have been in the middle of cooking and thought, boy would I really like another cooker! It got cumbersome pretty quickly having to empty the contents of one meal, cleaning the cooker, and then starting with another recipe for a side dish. Just thought I would update so that everyone knows how seriously awesome this machine is. Background of my cooking experience: I received this when I was 23 years old last Christmas. I had this pressure cooker on my wishlist for almost a year because I couldn't afford or justify spending that much money on myself, especially because I did not know how well this would work out for me. I didn't start cooking until I was on my own in an apartment during college. About 6 years ago when my boyfriend would drive up to visit for the weekend, I realized I didn't know how to cook, and it was embarrassing. I made a great breakfast sandwich and a colorful salad for a couple more years before I took a dive into "real" cooking. For the next few years or so, my boyfriend would become my guinea pig for all the various, horrible meals I cooked, all so I could get more experience in the kitchen. Even though we're not together anymore, I like to think it wasn't because of what I put him through. I still wasn't as great at cooking as I wanted to be. That's where the pressure cooker came into play. My mom bought me the cooker, the 6 quart size. She bought me a cookbook to go with it, the "Electric Pressure Cooker: 365 Quick & Easy, One Pot, Pressure Cooker Recipes For Easy Meals." This book is ESSENTIAL to go with this cooker. A necessity. You hear me? ESSENTIAL. This is because the "recipe book" that goes with it is not good, and I haven't used it at all. You, the reader, deserve a REAL cookbook. If you're already splurging on this pressure cooker, you might as well make the purchase worth it by buying the cookbook too. However, some of the add-ons from the pressure cooker actually include helpful information about how long/what settings to use on certain kinds of foods. I have used that. It also lists in detail what kinds of foods the settings are used for. This is now the end of June and I can honestly say that I have used this pressure cooker weekly, multiple times a week sometimes, and even daily (depending on my schedule). Thanks to the cookbook listed above, cooking blogs, and Pinterest, I have made some AMAZING, delicious, and FAST recipes out of this thing. I am continually amazed by this machine. This has made cooking so much easier, faster, and a lot more fun for me, so that I no longer feel like all that I do once I get home from work is slave over cooking for my household. This is not to say that the pressure cooker is completely intuitive. You will probably need to read the manual to learn about the different functions and settings. This is a complex cooker, and in order to take full advantage of the many things this baby can do, you should read the manual. Just look at it, will ya. Some of the few things I have made with this pressure cooker is honey BBQ wings for game nights (fall-off-the-bone wings that were finished in the broiler), BBQ bacon meatloaf (my fiance's favorite recipe, says it is better than his mom's-- take THAT, Kathy), sausage and cheese soup (tastes like the flavors have been cooking all day when in actuality it's just TEN, yes you read correctly, ten minutes), cheesy garlic potatoes, couscous, quinoa, salmon, baked potatoes, pan-seared porkchops (perfection in this thing!), bacon, pork taquitos, meatballs, risotto, Italian Zuppa Toscana soup, baked beans (and not from the can), casseroles, chowder, Hawaiian BBQ chicken, and more. This one device has allowed me to feel like a master chef that delivers exquisite meals. All of the recipes are cooked straight in the pressure cooker, because it has so many different settings like saute, brown, simmer, etc. This helps tremendously when it is time to clean up. A one-pot cooking monster machine. Some helpful tips: The pressure cooker has to warm up / preheat when you set it to cook something. As you will find out when you read the manual, actually setting the timer will delay your preheating from starting by however long you set the timer (can be useful in cases when you have other things cooking and want them to be finished at the same time). To start your pressure cooker, you need to hit the "manual" button (this is what I use no matter what I cook), adjust your pressure with the "adjust" button (also used when you click the "saute/browning" button-- adjusting the pressure for the saute function is the difference between "sauteing/browning" [normal], "thickening" ["less" mode], "stir-frying" ["high" mode], and "simmering" ["less" mode]), and then waiting for the confirmation beep that will happen after you are done adjusting your settings. Be sure to close the steam release valve when you are cooking with the pressure cooker. This can be done by turning the steam release up. To do a "quick release" after your countdown is done, turn off the cooker and release the pressure by turning the steam release down (be careful not to hover your hand over this part as the steam will shoot out). You will know when it is safe to open the lid when the silver float valve drops, and actually, you will be literally unable to open it before it drops. When it comes to safety, and basically everything else, this pressure cooker is not the pressure cooker your grandma used. When I am doing a "slow release" of pressure, I of course first down off the cooker and then place a cold wash rag on top of my cooker until the float valve drops. It is normal to sometimes see puffs of steam come out of your cooker while it is cooking something. Also, my mom didnt notice the "off" button on the bottom right for a while, so whenever she had to switch between functions she would literally unplug the cooker and then plug it back in. This is not necessary. The only thing I haven't tried making in this is yogurt, but I plan to make it some day and will update this review afterwards. Clean-up is so easy. Take out the pot and let it soak for a while. Trust me, when you let your cooker soak for a day, the crusts and stains of food will come right up with a little elbow grease. Be sure to clean the lid and take out the transparent rubbery part from the inside of the lid. Don't forget to clean the outside of the cooker either, as food can sometimes get stuck in the lip of the cooker. After raving about this cooker to my mom, she bought one for herself, and we share recipes and knowledge about how to use the cooker with each other. It's a fun thing we get to bond about. I've actually convinced some co-workers to get one too, in particular one co-worker who is a caretaker for a disabled family member. She told me that cooking for him and her own immediate family was exhausting, especially because, in cases where he is on his own, using the stove or oven is too dangerous for him. When you're able to throw ingredients for a soup into the pressure cooker, and 10 minutes later (not counting pre-heat time) you have a delicious soup for days, it can really take off some of that pressure for some people. Some other things that I like about the pressure cooker is that these recipes do not require a lot of ingredients, and you will probably have most of them stocked in your kitchen already. The only drawback that I have experienced is it is not very intuitive if you have not used it before. But the userguide is helpful, and if you have any questions, you can comment and let me know! I've included some pictures. A go-to easy recipe for potlucks that everybody loves is: 1 cup of water, a bag of frozen fully cooked meatballs on the steamer basket and cook those for five minutes. Use a quick release and remove meatballs. Discard cooking water. Add 18 oz of BBQ sauce, 18 oz. of grape jelly, and stir frequently on tge "saute" setting until combined into a sauce. Add your meatballs back in and change the settings to "keep warm." Voila. Sweet BBQ meatballs. Pictures added show the bbq honey wings I made in the pressure cooker and then finished in the broiler. Other photo is bbq bacon meatloaf made in the cooker and then finished in the broiler. Last, the most amazing beef enchiladas--I cooked a 3 lb beef chuck roast in the pressure cooker and then rolled up the tortillas and finished in the oven. The last two pictures are from recipes found in the cookbook I listed. Happy cooking, everyone!