Connie H.'s pressure cooker

== The Pressure Cooker: Save Energy and Stay Cool! ==

There’s a heat wave. Fortunately, we’re out of the city and near water that we can actually swim in. What could spoil this? Corn in season, that’s what!

“I picked up a dozen ears of corn”, my husband announces. There’s no microwave and no room on the barbecue. I’ll be bringing a big pot of water to boil to cook corn—not the first time during this heat wave. My husband loves corn on the cob. I love it too, but it’s over 30 C, and I’m nearing a “take this cob and stuff it!” crisis.

That’s what finally made me go out and purchase a pressure cooker. I’d been thinking about it for some time. I’d kept my eyes open for a second-hand one, but no luck. I soon realized that a pressure cooker—like a good quality, well-seasoned wok—is something people often keep for life.

Now I fill my pressure cooker with a cup of water, rest a French steamer on the bottom and pressure-steam half a dozen ears of corn in 4 minutes. What a relief! It’s so fast and convenient. Then I discovered how many other fresh veggies I could cook this way. A whole array of wonderful veggies in season, and pressure-cooked vegetables retain their own natural flavours, vitamins, and garden-fresh colours!

You do need a pressure-cooking table of cooking times (tables can be found in many all-purpose cookbooks). I’d also recommend using an accurate timer—it’s a good opportunity to figure out how to use your watch’s stop clock function—or watching the time very, very closely as overcooking results very quickly.

Now I regularly cook staples like potatoes and rice in my pressure cooker. I found a really great recipe for cooking rice. You pour a couple of inches of water into your pressure cooker. I add 1¼ water to 1 cup rice in a metal bowl (you can even use a tin can) that fits easily into the cooker and leaves space between the bowl and the sides and top of the cooker. Lower the bowl into the cooker and pressure-cook as usual. When it’s done, you will have a bowl of rice! Plus, no sticking!

How much energy do I save using a pressure cooker? Relative to my other energy uses, perhaps not a great deal. But I sure notice the difference in circumstances where energy and water are not available at the flick of a switch or the turn of the tap. For my husband and me, summer living away from home entails filling and hauling propane tanks and 5-gallon water jugs. You quickly become very motivated to conserve both energy and water. Using a pressure cooker is definitely one way to do so.

Believe me, the pressure-cooker is not an outdated relic from the past. Its many advantages will never go out of style.