Cooking Beans

Last Sunday I showed you my new pressure cooker and mentioned that you could cook dried beans in it in a short time and I would let you know how that worked when I tried it. On Thursday this week I gave it a go.

The book that came with the cooker says for every cup of food add 3 cups of water. So I put in two cups of washed dried pinto beans and six cups of water. It also said to add 1 tsp of vegetable oil (I used olive oil) for every cup of water to keep it from foaming. Then it said to put the lid on, set it for High pressure at 3 minutes which I did. It took it about 12 minutes to come to pressure and then to it started to cook for 3 minutes. At 3 minutes it shut off to warm and I hit the stop button and let it release pressure naturally as it said to do. When I took the cover off this is what they looked like:

 

They had cooked but to me they needed more cooking as they were firmer than we liked them, so I put the lid back on and repeated the process for another 3 minutes. They came out like this:

 

They look about the same, but these were softer. I had to rinse them off because of the oil. I think 6 tsps of oil might be a little much. We decided that we like our beans cooked all day on the stove slow with onions and ham hocks added and cornbread. If you wanted beans but forgot to soak them overnight this would be a good way to do a quick start. I think maybe what the directions meant but didn't say was 3 minutes per cup of food is the cooking time. So there you have it. I really like the pressure cooker and will keep trying recipes and let you know if I find a keeper. If you have one of these pressure cookers do you use it and do you like it? Let me know if you have a favorite recipe to use  in it.

Something Other Than Quilting

I'm not a health food nut, but as I age and have become not so pleasingly plump I find myself looking for ways I can do something that is good for me and I might lose a little weight in the process. For years I have owned a Vitamix and love using it. Today I found a new website that is having a giveaway the month of September for a Vitamix 750 which I would love to own. If you are interested I have added the site to my blog list or you can get there by using this link:  here .  When you sign up for the newsletter you are automatically entered to win.

The reason I am interested in this website is recently one of my friends used a a green smoothie as a cleasing fast and lost weight and stayed healthy while doing so  after she watched the movie called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. So I watched the movie and ordered a book called :

 

Hard as it is to believe some of these drinks sound really good and tasty and I am going to give this a try. Since I am diabetic I won't be doing a fast, but if I use it before meals and for snacks I should be much better off. So when I start I'll let you know and what progress if any I make. I have no connection to any of these products other than I own them and use them and just wanted to share. 

 

Just wanted to leave you with this picture from the Healthy Blenders Recipes website. I thought it was an interesting use of food. It must be the new cantaloupe owl. LOL