Book Review : How to Insta Pot

My christmas present was a “How to Insta Pot” cookbook by Daniel Shumski .
100 recipes and a lot of information on how to convert your own personal recipes to insta pot recipes.
The price was in the ten dollar range from Amazon.

Those people that think they would never use an insta pot have not tried an insta pot.   I have been on a mission to cut our food costs without sacrificing good basic nutrition .   That didnt mean eati g bans and rice as a steady diet.   It has been a learning experience of many years.  
I digress
My mother always said that everyone pays their dues.   Life is not all peaches and cream.   I planned for our retirement, but both sets of our parents had professions that had their medical pretty much taken care of in retirement.   Neither of us worked in union or government jobs.   That didnt happen.   Our medical takes my entire social security check.   I’m not complaining, I just dont want others to fall into the same trap.  I guess thats a heads up.

My children are the ones that encouraged me to write a blog on economy food.   My daughter has taught children from low income families for years.  She was hearing that some families were having a hard time making it through the month on their SNAP money.   My daughter told a mother that hr mom knew how.   I started this blog to help those people.   It has turned into more and reaches a variety of  people in a variety of circumstances.  

I digress:  the insta pot....it is a remarkable tool that can save its cost in less than a year.  The more foods that you can cook from scratch, the better your pocketbook and your health will be.   Cooking from scratch lets you control the amount of sodium and the kinds of fats you are using.  

I just couldn’t manage to get cooking rice down to a science.  Rice and beans do not have a long refrigerator life.  Freezing beans does not produce a great result.   There are four of us in the house tht at beans.   Small batches of scratch beans are a royal pain to cook—not efficient.   Beans in the instapot take less than five minutes hands on time and are a fraction of the cost of canned beans.  
Rice is another less than five minute hands on cooking.  How many times have you forgotten to take meat out of the freezer?  A boneless chicken breast cooks from frozen in 8 minutes if its not too thick.  A thicker one takes a few more minutes .

Recipes in the cookbook:

• Beef Barbacoa Tacos
• Beef stew
• Cumin spiced pork sirloin with avocado salsa 
• Pork shoulder 
• Pinto beans with chorizo,
• Polenta. No stir 
• Quick chili 
• Beyond black bean soup 
• Bacon, corn and potato chowder 
• Butternut squash
• Refried beans 
• Chocolate lava cakes 
• Korean style short ribs with garlic and ginger
• Meatloaf 
• Tomatillo pork stew 
• Shredded chicken tacos with tomato and lime
• Chicken soup 
• Barley mushroom soup
• White bean soup with panchetta
• Parmesan brad Pudding with bacon and  broccoli
• French toast cassarole w maple 
• Mashed cauliflower with garlic and cream cheese 
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