IP (Instant Pot) Part 1: Instant

“Then Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.” – Matthew 15:28 

First of all, I want to clarify that the name for “Instant Pot” is catchy but a little bit misleading. It might give you a false hope that food can be done instantly, which is a selling point in modern day culture. When we bought our first instant pot my younger boys actually thought delicious food might come out of the pot instantly like a magical box!! After they read the colorful recipe book coming along with the pot, they were anxiously begging me to make this or that they saw in the book. I guess “a magical pot” makes a good prompt for a children’s story (check “Further reading” at the end if interested), but does not work so well in real life. I had to explain to my children that instant pot is simply another pressure cooker and we still need to prepare the food, make plans, and cook the food! 

Deep inside, we all wish our desires could be satisfied instantly without waiting, don’t we? We see convenience foods of all sorts, like instant oatmeal/noodles/cake mix, just to name a few. I fell into the commercial trap many times when I was younger. It was gratifying for my flesh to make “food” so quickly. Unlike the default choices for many people today in the States, back in the 80s in China, convenience food was almost like a luxury item, sold as a novel and new experience. That was before supermarkets were a thing! Most people made food from scratch then. I remember staring at the packaged instant noodles on the display shelf in the glass cabinet and wondered what flavor it was like. The commercials had an easy entrance to my young and unguarded mind. 

Later in my life there were more and more convenience foods available in the market. The packaged foods have now successfully integrated into people’s daily lives just like in the U.S.. It’s easy to see people snacking on various convenience foods at the train station, at schools, parks, on the streets, all around the city. Trash coming along with those packaged foods also mounted quickly! People are getting too busy to cook every meal at home. More and more people are moving into the cities to find work. Holiday migration across China gave convenience foods a stage to shine for sure.

As we started our family, we began to be more intentional to develop healthier eating habits. Following my husband’s lead, I actually began to read ingredients on the food label! I used to naively believe as long as it is labeled as food, it should be okay. I thought I was making choices simply based on personal taste preferences. Little did I know the food trap was designed to dictate my taste buds, and tempted my flesh to follow the market schemes (Check “Further Reading” for more resources if interested). Fortunately, growing up we were not raised to snack or go out to eat too often. Before the damage was long-term, God has graciously and timely revealed more truths about real food in my life. Now that my eyes are opened to more truths, I find it nearly impossible to find convenience foods with satisfying quality. I will refrain myself from talking too much about the poor nutrition or even addictive ingredients, like MSG, sneaked into many convenience foods for this post. Even for the few okay choices, they are pretty pricey and tend to have more sugar, or use harmful oil, even if it is organic. 

So back to home cooking with an instant pot: what is it? Like I explained to my children, it is simply an electric pot with a pressure cooking function, which can speed up the cooking. The “instant” part does not cover all its functions though. It can be used as a slower cooker, saute pan, or yogurt maker. Actually, there are more brands of electrical pressure cookers in the market, like Ninja or Farberware. IP is more popular so the term “instant pot” is used widely for cookers similar in function. (I will use IP from now on for discussions about instant pot in general, and based on the IP brand we use most often).  

When we call the cooker “instant”, the “slow” feature is often overlooked. I wonder whether most people buy IP for the “instant” part? Maybe. It feeds the “I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!” mentality. If you own an instant pot, you know it is not always “instant”. On the other hand, unlike the junky instant food, food made from an IP could be quite nutritious and delicious using less time compared to normal stove top cookware.

We have used IP for many years now. Is IP really faster? Yes and no. It depends on what you want to cook and what your expectations are. Over the years, I have learned to work with the different functions of IP. My favorite feature is actually the timer! I can set the time and walk away. Food can be ready when meal time comes. One thing we do almost every night is to get a pot of multi-grain oatmeal porridge ready. I have the water and grains measured, push the “Delay Start” button and set for 6-8 hours later to start (depending on the time of the night), and choose “Keep Warm”, then “Start” to have breakfast begin cooking during the night.

You can play around with the water and grain ratio a bit and see what best fits your family. I usually have 4 cups of multi-grain and a full 8 QT pot of water.  It is more on the watery/runny  side, which is better for digestion. The overnight soaking is also beneficial for nutrition absorption. You may add a splash of raw apple cider vinegar or other acid, like yogurt or lemon juice, to start a light fermentation and break down the starches, and boost more nutrition for your consumption. You can make it more dense by reducing the water amount ½ C a time. Just be aware that if you cook your oatmeal with too little liquid, food may get burnt on the bottom of the pot and the cooking process will automatically stop. Your IP will give you the warning message “BURN”. When that happens, your meal will certainly not be ready on time! This is true for thick sauces, or food burnt on the bottom. I have learned to use IP to make mostly soupy food if I need to walk away for a while. 

However, you don’t want to have too much liquid either. It will make a huge mess if you do! You will need to tear the whole machine apart to give it a good clean. Plus, your kitchen counter and cabinets may have some “lovely” gooey splashes. I think our first IP broke after one of those explosions. Fear not, you will learn how to tame this powerful beast and let it work for you rather than against you. Just to be safe, you can have your water line be quite a bit lower than the max line. (I know this is a warning to myself, because the ambitious side of me tends to fit in as much as I can from one pot cooking.)  

It is a comfort to wake up every morning, smelling the comforting porridge or oatmeal, knowing a warm breakfast is ready to go. Now that I think about it, I need to correct myself. Once in a while, life gets busy and my mind grows weary. Instead, we may wake up and realize we never started the breakfast, or I had one time with pressure cooked water! Our children loved those “oops” days, becasue I usually fix something different quickly for breakfast. They like the change. I am grateful for their flexibility. 

For a busy mom, I am grateful for the ease of a filling and nutritious breakfast with the help of an IP. We add fruits, nuts, raisins, frozen berries, and various cooked beans or even sweet potatoes to the pot on different days. We usually have fresh milk or homemade smoothies on the table to pass around. Some of us like to have Kombucha or sauerkraut with our breakfast. We change things up for special occasions, like holidays or birthdays. Having a pot of oatmeal ready, I don’t need to worry that anyone will still be hungry after the meal.  I can always store the leftovers to eat later as a quick snack for the kiddos. 

As for other side dishes and main meals, I am heavily dependent on IP as well throughout the day. Recently, I started to make some animal foods with IP, so I need to plan ahead a bit for the timing. The IP definitely wins the-most-used-appliance honor in my kitchen! At one point, our first IP broke after a few years. I didn’t expect it would be so short-lived. No wonder some homesteaders are skeptical about newer appliances, like IP. I was ready to make life work like before without the IP. My dear husband, who took the lead to have bought the Vitamix, ordered another IP right away to make my life easier!

If our IP breaks again, we later learned that a cheaper way to get a nice IP is from Facebook Marketplace. I wonder whether some people forgo their IP because they are not receiving the “instant” results they hoped for. Or maybe they have received it as a gift but are not sure how to use it, intimated by the pressure cooking fuction. Whatever the case, it is still worth considering buying a used one if you want to try IP. It will cost you the price of a normal pot but with many more other bonuses, especially if you are tight on time. Our current IP digital panel is having issues and looks like a secret code only we can read. I kept the inner pot from our previous broken IP. With two inner pots, I can pull out one pot and insert the other pot with food already prepared right inside, and get the food to start cooking without much delay in timing. 

Continue with “IP (Instant Pot) Part 2: COOKING” (Coming soon…)